Billed as the only Canadian date for UK punk institution Hard Skin, the buzz around Wrongbar began well before the piss-taking Oi band got anywhere near the stage. By 10pm there was already a healthy contingent of hardcore holdouts and hype-swayed hipsters gathered outside Queen West’s best new venue. And with the anxiety-inducing absence of advance tickets, it seems that the punk rock thing to do on a Tuesday night was to not show up late.

Within no time, feedback speared the air and Toronto’s Bad Skin dove headlong into an adequate opening set. Looking and sounding like they had emerged straight out of 1981, their old school hardcore sound came across with just the right mix of aggression and desperation. As soon as they started, the pit whipped into action like someone had roughly flipped the switch on a blender full of marbles, and the pit-dwellers kept it up for the duration of their brief performance. Despite being too hardcore for their own equipment (the guitar amp continuously cut out and the bass drum head gave out after only a few songs) the band kept it together, mostly due to the exceptional beats from their drummer and the lean and manic presence of singer Jay.

Since I had never seen Brutal Knights before, I was slightly dazed by the fact that they are fronted by caustic comedian and EYE WEEKLY writer Nick Flanagan — someone I’ve politely met on a number of occasions and who apparently becomes an entirely different entity when the glasses come off. Like the highschool quarterback of punk, Flanagan and BK had a solid wall of fans right up front shouting along with every lyric and soaking in his charismatic intensity, which occasionally involves pouring beer over himself. With songs like “Living by Yourself”, “My Life My Fault” and “Grow Up Throw Up”, Brutal Knights are smart enough to keep their hardcore funny, and funny enough to keep it smart.

The same might not be said about Hard Skin. What started back in the mid-1990s as a joke band response to London’s “Oi sound” has now taken on a life of its own. But if they sound like a throwback, at this point it’s a throwback to themselves, as their glass-raising, fist-pumping anthems are actually fairly appealing in a jock-rock-for-punkers kind of way.

Coming on with a proper bit of fuck-off UK arrogance, the trio, fronted by Fat Bob and Johnny Takeaway on bass and guitar respectively, endeared themselves to the crowd by claiming their cultural superiority and then dedicating their first song “Oi Not Jobs” to the game of hockey: “It’s shit.” Things only got better as what felt like a Hard Skin convention chanted every IQ-reducing lyric and lapped up the abuse hurled by Fat Bob.

The pit was still going strong at about 12:30 when local hardcore heroes Fucked Up mounted their assault. The crowd’s sustained energy was no surprise since FU’s Looking for Gold blog indicates that this would be one of the few opportunities to bear witness to their notorious live show for the rest of the summer.

“Did you like my dad’s band?” quipped a shirted-and-ballcapped Pink Eyes (aka Damian Abraham) in reference to the similarity between himself and Hard Skin’s Fat Bob before delivering the first three tracks from their hardcore odyssey Hidden World – “Crudases”, “David Comes to Life” and “Invisible Leader.” The band was tight as ever and Damian remained his usual threatening-yet-loveable (and Terry Richardson-model-worthy) self. But with his vocals almost entirely unintelligible through the three-guitar buzz — courtesy of a horribly overwhelmed PA — it was up to the crowd to pick up the slack by filling in on the many backing shouts. Though the group participation made for an engaging event, the effect was lost during any new material, and especially so for the encore duet between pseudo father and son. Still, whatever Pink Eyes and Fat Bob were singing to each other it at least looked entertaining.