This was my second time seeing The Interrupters this year. The first was a few months back when they played The Danforth Music Hall. Please check out those photos here. They're relentlessly touring their latest album Fight the Good Fight, and the audience growth between the Danforth and Rebel shows that they're winning that fight and being joined by more and more fans. In fact, when they asked fans to shout out for whether they've seen the band before, or whether this was their first time seeing them, it seemed like the loudest cheer went up for the people who were seeing them for the first time. I'm sure they won't forget this incredible show.
They dedicated "Title Holder" to those fighting their own good fight against things like depression and PTSD. They played their cover of Billie Eilish's mega-hit "Bad Guy" lending it a ska-revival groove. They had asked fans to vote for the songs that they'd most like to hear live, that the band don't usually feature in their set. "The Valley", from 2016's Say It Out Loud was apparently the winner so we got to hear that album track. Then they got everybody up front to participate in a wall-of-death, for unity of course, before "I Gave You Everything".
They continued with a quasi-encore featuring a bit of "Summer of 69" as a Canadian tribute, followed by their awesome cover of Berlin's "The Metro". The Interrupters acknowledged this as their biggest Canadian show and they reminisced about their first Toronto show at Hard Luck and how their first-ever headlining show was in Canada, too. They thanked us for being family by playing "Family", as we thanked them for being family, and bringers of positive, infectious, feel-good ska tracks, and they closed out with "She's Kerosene".
Please check out some of my favourite Interrupters tunes from their super-solid setlist below. They were joined on this night by Skinny Lister and Sharp/Shock. My photos of their sets are here and here.
"A Friend Like Me"
"Take Back the Power"
"Title Holder"
"Bad Guy" (Billie Eilish cover)
"Gave You Everything"
"She's Kerosene"