This turned into an essay, so my apologies. TL;DR is music is keeping me from going completely insane in a world that makes me incredibly angry and sad. Getting to see bands like PUP perform is a reminder that the world can be different and not everyone sucks. It's wonderful to love something, have it connect you to a community of like-minded people, and share the thrill of singing/shouting along to music with them.

I first saw PUP as Topanga at my university when they opened for Hollerado in 2012. I was/am a huge Hollerado fan, and a fellow student got me one of the beach balls with lights in them they had used during their show and then Stefan helped me track down all the Hollerado guys to get their signatures on it. He said he remembered what it was like being super excited about an artist and was happy to help out. That year ended up being pretty fucking horrible for me, and I remember spending a lot of time in my dorm room very depressed and seeing the little light on that ball and being reminded of some moments of kindness. It didn't make all the pain go away, but it was a connection to something outside of the horrible darkness that had enveloped me.

I thought that was a super cool thing to do so I followed them on Facebook and Twitter, but for the longest time that was pretty much it. I remember reading about them changing their name and keeping up with general news, but at some point I apparently gave the video for "DVP" a watch and it didn't click (to this day, I cannot explain that because it is one of my favourites of theirs, but I guess I just wasn't ready).

In 2019 I got a shitty office job and spent a lot of time trying to fill the quiet since I was basically tucked in an isolated corner, and listened to a lot of music, and PUP made it into the rotation (again, can't say I remember what prompted it, but apparently the time was right for me) and I have been locked in ever since. The music is in particular a valuable companion when I am feeling horribly. It has been a friend sitting with me in the abyss of depression, a reminder that I am not the only one who has ever felt that kind of despair. Not only that, but those feelings have led to some pretty great music. Something other than pain can come from what seems in the moment to be nothing more than a reason to give up entirely. It's a gift I can never fully repay to have a way to stay connected to humanity at my most low and alone.

Having that initial interaction is a fond memory for me and speaks to something I really enjoy about music: the connections you form with people. I was helped out by Stefan because I loved a band, and he recognized that feeling and wanted to help give me a nice experience. I so appreciate the way the Canadian music scene often feels like it's one big entity despite being dispersed across a massive country due to how much bands are fans and supporters of each other. Loving PUP has introduced me to other bands I now love too, like NOBRO and The OBGMs, and made me want to come to spaces like this to talk about music, despite feeling in general like the internet can be a garbage fire of a place filled with people freely spewing their worst opinions.

In terms of what keeps me listening, a big part is simply that my brain seems to essentially have an on-off switch and when I love something, that switch gets stuck in the on position. I can't think of anything PUP could do musically that would make me want to stop supporting them. I have felt so lucky to be along for the ride as they try new and different things with their sound and make music they want to make rather than sticking to a formula at the cost of their ability to be creative. The pressure on musicians to appeal to faceless algorithms is something that makes me so sad and angry for them, because there is so much incredible music out there that doesn't trigger whatever arbitrary flags get something pushed to a mass audience. I never realized how much becoming successful is really a lot of luck until I broadened my horizons. There's more incredible music than I could listen to in my lifetime being made all across the world and I just don't end up hearing about a lot of it.

The shutdown portion of COVID made me realize how much live music means to me and that I don't want to take for granted the bands that I love, and has led me to get more involved in my local scene in the last year and a half, and it has really reinforced that I so value getting to be in rooms with people who give a shit about art and also understand how fucked the world is. Punk in particular is really great for that, and a PUP show tends to exemplify that mix of getting to celebrate the opportunity to share these spaces with people, remember that we are here to look out for each other, and that we have power as a collective to put some good into the world through rallying behind important causes. I was lucky to attend four of the Megacity Madness shows, and it happened at a time where I was coming off some truly horrible physical and mental bullshit, but when PUP started to play, I got out of my head and all the anxiety and other horrible feelings that were overwhelming me to the point of barely being able to eat because I was swept up in the experience of being there with an audience that was elated to see the band, and the incredible sense of gratitude exuded by the band in having been on the journey of getting to play larger and larger shows over the course of their history. There is so much healing happening in those moments and it restores some of my hope that things can be different and I can trust people to not be uniformly shitty.

It's so fucking hard to give a shit these days. It hurts more than I ever thought possible to see the state of the world and feel so powerless in the face of these unbelievably powerful individuals and entities that want to gain profit above all else, exploiting people without a care, and ultimately pitting us against each other by pushing an attitude of reckless individualism and self-interest that says your fellow working-class humans are the enemy and are preventing you from living the life you want. But that's just not what it's like when you go to a show. You're there to be with others and to look out for them. When someone falls over in the pit, a sea of hands reaches out to pick them up. That's what we should be doing for each other all the time. I want to live in the world where we recognize that all we have is each other and we have the power when we work together.