After sadly having to cancel their Australian run of dates due to illness, Sum 41 are wrapping up their final world tour as scheduled this week in their hometown of Toronto*.
While Thursday marks the actual “final” concert for the Ontario band, tonight was the first of two packed shows celebrating “The Setting Sum” in front of almost 20,000 people. 20,000 people frontman Deryck Whibley affectionally called “The Sum 41 Family”.
In support for both shows are punk bands Gob – who predate Sum 41, and were co-founded by Tom Thacker, who now plays with Sum 41 as well – and fellow Toronto band PUP. Who are no strangers to Australia’s shores.
So what went down at Sum 41’s penultimate show?
Anyone hoping for special guests at the show would have left disappointed, although Thacker joined PUP during their set for a brand new track “Paranoid”. Meaning he was part of all three bands who performed on the evening.
Although that hasn’t always been the case during this tour, with PUP frontman Stefan Babcock telling the crowd, “The first half of this tour this song fucking sucked. Since Tom joined us for it, it’s fucking rocked!”.
PUP called the bands they were playing with “their heroes” and said the night was a “career highlight”, remarking how odd it was to be drinking beer and not watching a sport team. The venue, after all, is the local hockey and basketball arena.
Sum 41 hit the stage to much adulation from the crowd, and set literal fire to the stage as they plowed through some 30 songs, over two hours and two encores.
There were balloons in the crowd, plenty of pyro, lasers, and even an inflatable skeleton giving everyone the finger. The backdrop, meanwhile, was a simple one, featuring the band’s logo and a collage of all their albums – in yellow! Then the sheet dropped down and the changed to red during “Walking Disaster”.
Whibley didn’t dwell too much on the enormity of the situation, though said early in the night, “It feels good to be home, I can’t believe it, it’s almost over. We had to save the best for last though goddamnit!”
Most of the show was in track with that they’ve been doing on the tour so far, with a little bit from just about every record they’ve put out, and a couple of brief Slayer and Metallica covers.
They also included “Noots”, with Whibley commenting on its history. “We wrote this song over 20 years ago for Chuck, didn’t put it on it – somehow it got released on the internet and it became our most requested song. We rarely play it, but tonight we are.”
They have been playing it quite a bit on this tour, to be fair, but it wasn’t a track you heard much in the past – so plenty of fans would have been satisfied by that.
Whibley also took a moment to show off the guitar he got back after it was stolen and went missing for 20 years.
At the end of the first encore, Whibley told the crowd, “We’re going to miss you… thank you is not even enough to say… One last time this song now is called “In Too Deep””. And boy did that get an amazing singalong. As did so many songs on the night – “Fat Lip” of course, another highlight.
After the lights came back on, they did a surprise second encore, an appropriate and acoustic version of “So Long Goodbye” – which isn’t the first time it’s happened on the tour. Though a lot of the crowd had already made it for the exit. The band had, after all, thrown out their guitar picks and done their bows.
While we don’t know what they have in store for their FINAL Show on Thursday, if tonight is any indication, their hometown audience is going to give them one hell of a sendoff.
SETLIST
Motivation
The Hell Song
Over My Head (Better Off Dead)
No Reason
War
Underclass Hero
Noots
Landmines
Dopamine
Raining Blood (Slayer) / Master of Puppets (Metallica)
We’re All to Blame
Some Say
Walking Disaster
With Me
Makes No Difference
My Direction
No Brains
All Messed Up
Preparasi a salire
Rise Up
Pieces
Fat Lip
Still Waiting
Encore One:
Summer
Waiting on a Twist of Fate
In Too Deep
Encore Two:
So Long Goodbye
To see if any tickets remain for the final show on Thursday, you can check out the Ticketmaster page.
*Yes, they’re technically from Ajax, but that’s part of the “Greater Toronto Area”, so we’ll allow it.
Photos by the author.
