Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A heavier approach to punk

Bigger venue, heavier sound for Punk Night with hardcore punk metal craziness of Frost Bite Tour

What: Frost Bite Tour

Who: Death By Stereo, Bigwig, Big D and the Kids Table, The Flatliners, The Brat Attack

When: Sunday, March 19, 8:30 p.m.

Where: Garfinkel’s

Tickets: $15/$20

With five of North America’s most rumbling punk bands crashing Whistler, Punk Night organizer Lindsay Shedden had to find a bigger venue than the Boot Pub to accommodate the crowds headliners such as Bigwig and Death By Stereo draw.

So instead of venturing over to the Boot Pub, metal heads should head towards Whistler Village for a special Punk Night Sunday, March 19 at Garfinkel’s – the future home for Punk Night when the Boot closes its doors at the end of April.

The Frostbite Tour includes New Jersey’s Bigwig, Boston’s Big D and the Kids Table, Pennsylvania’s The Flatliners, Winnipeg’s The Brat Attack and Orange County’s Death By Stereo.

Fans hovering between the lines of punk and metal will quench their heavy lustful thirst with Death By Stereo, cranking up an angrier sound than past shows as evident on the band’s latest album, Death for Life , where the extremities of hardcore and metal’s fluid riffs merge on one stage.

"We’ve always been into heavier music," said Stereo guitarist Dan Palmer.

"It wasn’t a conscious decision to go this route. We are a punk band at heart, but we definitely love the metal when it comes along. Fans have been a little taken aback by it. They are definitely warming up to it and we’ve gained a lot of new fans because of it."

Fans have had a rough go of it over the past year. Many were traumatized by reports of Death By Stereo knowing the words to "Why you have to go and make things so complicated?!" as well as Justin Timberlake and cheesy rap making their way into the band’s usual influences of Iron Maiden, Slayer and Bad Religion. Death By Stereo adds salt to the wound with the band introducing what many punkers can only refer to as the "B" word – a ballad, a lovey-dovey sounding tale about a friend who is fighting cancer.

"The ladies love it: it is very tender," Palmer said.

Okay, it’s just a ploy to get more women out to the show. Punkers can rest easy.

Record and road is all this band is about, spending more than eight months of the year touring Canada, the U.S., Europe and now South America, the Caribbean and Mexico.

Death By Stereo was the Dominican Republic’s first exposure to live hard rock: Palmer said very few bands tour that far south of the U.S. boarder.

"I think everyone is scared of Columbia," he said. "My parents were calling, saying to be careful. They thought we were going to get kidnapped or something, but it is a nice modern city. We didn’t feel unsafe at all. The kids went insane in the Dominican. I think they are starved for bands. People just don’t go down there… That is part of the adventure of being in a band, to see as many new places as you can."

It’s been new experiences all around for the band that worked with producers for the first time to record Death For Life .

The Orange County quintet worked in pre-production with Matt Hyde of Slayer and Monster Magnet as well as Fred Archambault and Bruce MacFarlance of The Factory – Avenged Sevenfold and Eighteen Visions.

"They had outside unbiased suggestions for songs," Palmer said. "It’s not like (the band) working together and getting all fired up and saying the bass goes here, and fuck you, no it goes here. You can’t get mad at (the producer) and you are not on tour with him all year."

Advanced $15 tickets available at Willy’s or $20 at the door. An early show, doors open at 8:30 p.m. with 1 p.m. close time.