August 29, 1998
Good better, but Sugar still sweet

"This next song in no way reflects on recent events," warned Matthew Good before his eponymous band launched into their anthemic single Indestructible containing the eerie lyric "I died on an amusement park ride, but I came back to you."  

 Perhaps not picking up the grim connection to last week's accident, the kids jubilantly rode the guitar wave in a mad mosh pit. But it wasn't their fault. Vancouver's Matthew Good Band simply played too furiously to be ignored.  

 Good stridently declares himself a child of the '80s with his vintage Atari T-shirt and the song Invasion One about that lost decade. But his grunge rock exposes him as a true child of the Nirvana revolution.  

 Their music may be less gloom and doom than its earlier counterpart, but the combination of punk energy and metal guitars was blatant throughout the set. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Any group that manages to add a little energy to the flaccid alt-rock scene is a welcome one.  

 In fact, the 5,500-strong crowd at the Ex was far more alive than during the previous night's Violent Femmes show. Songs like Rico and Apparitions from their first major label CD Underdogs inspired the masses to wave their lighters, hop up and down and generally go manic.  

 Ostensibly an opening act, the Matthew Good Band got a far bigger reaction than headliners Big Sugar.  

 That Toronto band suffered from treating the crowd to a large helping of their new album Heated which won't hit record stores until Tuesday. The new songs got cheers but the audience pretty much just stood there and listened politely.  

 Despite this, Big Sugar put on a good performance with their trademark AC/DC-style metal guitar riffs, blues-influenced vocals and harmonica, and a bouncy reggae bass line.  

 Whenever the bass took the forefront of a song -- like during I'm Around -- the vibe improved considerably. The same effect happened whenever they pulled something like Digging a Hole out of their 1996 platinum release Hemi-Vision.  

 But lead singer Gordie Johnson indulged his desire to "rawk" a few too many times -- he has previously stated his big dream of playing hockey arenas -- with his silly double-necked guitar and pointless solos.  

 Big Sugar may play perfect music to headbang to, but today's kids just wanna mosh.

JAM! Rating: 3 out of 5