Words: Miljan Milekić
Three great punk rock bands on a Friday night? Please, and thank you! Especially if one of them is Diesel Boy, who likely hasn’t visited the city since the last century. And judging by the packed club, I wasn’t the only one who felt the same.
Unlike most people in the audience or on the stage, my experience with Diesel Boy was kinda backwards. I wasn’t a fan of the band during their initial run. I was just too young and too far away from California to be aware of their existence, and once I did discover their music, they were halfway through their 20-year hiatus. Fast forward to 2025, the band seems to be going strong since their comeback in 2022, and it looks like they have no intention of slowing down.
The night started with Saskatoon’s four-piece Swayze, the band that’s really growing on me with their gritty, yet melodic sound, embracing from Californian skate punk to Midwest emo. I first heard the band last September when they opened for Calling All Captains, and I really wanted to see them at the Totally Rad Skateboards jam last weekend, but life had other plans. Same as the first time I saw them, they delivered a great, fun set, while making their lives harder by printing the setlist on a comic. Although I’m not 100% sure if this time they used Garfield.
Me The Guts came in next, bringing their version of punk rock and hardcore. Lots of energy, lots of melody, lots of everything good. I always found drummers who can pull off lead vocals fascinating, as my own brain would not be able to compute that kind of multitasking, while Derek K seems to be pulling it with ease. Similar to the band before them, Me The Guts were also happy to make their lives harder by letting fans pull songs out of a hat on the stage, curating a setlist in real time. Pretty brave move for a band whose two members now live in Edmonton and use Spotify to practice.
Finally, it was time to play the music, as the Muppet Show theme song announced from the PA system, and Disel Boy answered the call with ‘Lost Decade,’ the opening track from 2023’s album ‘Gets Old,’ setting the tone for the rest of their set. During the 20-something-song set, they pulled all the stops, touching on all records and eras. I also have to give props to the crowd who reacted to the new songs with the same energy they did to the old stuff, which is not always the case with bands returning to the scene after years or decades.
In the great skate punk tradition, the set was filled with banter, anecdotes, and jokes that are probably only funny to people at these shows. We even managed to get the a cappella cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ during the brief technical issues – “Did you really break your string…talking!?,” giving just enough time for everyone to catch some breath between all the mosh pits.
As the show was nearing the end, the band brought out the big guns, to which the crowd responded by going even crazier. Songs such as ‘Saving The World,’ ‘Punk Rock 101,’ and ‘201,’ are still heavy hitters, along with the very last ‘She’s My Queen,’ ‘Titty Twister,’ and ‘Punk Rock Girl.’ It’s been a long time since Diesel Boy played these parts of Canada, and I believe everyone at the Black Cat Tavern this evening would say this show was worth waiting for. However, I hope Saskatoon won’t need to wait nearly this long for the next one, despite us bringing them just ONE SINGLE BUTTER TART!
