The Templars: New York street punk legends return to Vancouver

Long Island's legendary street punk/ Oi! band the Templars will headline a stacked bill at the Cobalt tonight, making their return to Vancouver for the first time since October 2002.

Long Island's legendary street punk/ Oi! band the Templars will headline a stacked bill at the Cobalt tonight, making their return to Vancouver for the first time since October 2002. It's a big deal for Toy Tiger frontperson Bugsy Faithfull, whose band occupies the first slot, that the show is happening at the venue he helped resurrect and rehabilitate as a punk club last year. They are one of my favourite bands ", he says of the Templars, "and as a teenager, I used to walk around listening to them in my headphones and feeling proud that I had found my identity in this subculture."

These days, Faithfull has been a skinhead for longer than he has not, and he's still a huge fan of the Templars. About the only downside to playing on the same bill, he says with a laugh, is that his band will have to cut their cover of the Templars' "City Traffic" from their set. We confess to not really knowing three of the other openers, Abbotsford-based Mad World (playing their Vancouver debut), Winnipeg's Pure Impact, or Vancouver's Pura Mania, who sing primarily in Spanish, but apparently feature former members of Vancouver punk bands Sore Points and Spectres.

We invite you to do your own homework; all of them make potent, tuneful street punk, making this an event not to be missed. Mind you, the band on the bill who we have seen (three times now!) is Greg Huff's new band First Attack.

With Bishops Green on hiatus, Huff has taken up guitar and changed his musical approach: it's still Oi! music, but Huff's voice is gravellier than it was for Bishops Green and the songs are a bit more guitar-centric. Try "On the Other Side" off their debut LP . . The whole album is great!

The gig marks the Templars' first Vancouver show since October of 2002. NotYerBuddy's Seamus McGrath writes on Facebook that they played a poorly-attended show at the Cobalt when it was run by wendythirteen as Vancouver's Hardcore Bar. To McGrath's understanding, that show was their first and only time in Vancouver.

He was present, and recalls an audience of wendythirteen and the Cobalt staff, a guy on crutches, and "six to eight really stoked skinheads on the floor". "They played an incredible set chock-full of the classics", McGrath wrote, adding that "they were sweethearts at the merch table afterwards to boot. We left feeling mighty grateful and fairly certain we'd never see them up this way again."

(We're told that the Templars will have vinyl with them at tonight's show, which is exciting, since the band's music is rarely seen in stores here). Meanwhile, First Attack bassist Noah points out that there will also be what he calls a "reggae recovery day at the American", across the street from the Cobalt, on Saturday from noon to 5pm, involving DJs Your Man Flint (Mike Flintoff of the Tranzmitors) and Big Punch Sound spinning vinyl 45s. Unlike the Templars 2002 gig, tonight's show is sold out, but there will be very limited tickets available at the door, so if you've missed out on advance tickets, be front-of-the-line when the doors open at 7.