20 Years of Going Batty! Cancer Bats Celebrate Their Debut Release

By: Jojo Taylor

Toronto, Ontario - Cancer Bats fans, you may regret reading this. If you missed their 20th anniversary party at The Opera House on April 10th, you missed the best show of the year so far! This was a celebration like no other. But, I will digress already to let you know who else showed up before I get to the highlight.

Chastity

Chastity opened the evening with a full on audience. This crowd was not kidding around. They were here to be a part of a true event. Chastity was the warm up to a great party. The band was really surprised that they were actually playing to a packed house, and they loved it and worked even harder for it.

They came on and pounded the pavement like overworked construction workers. The light show behind them was pretty cool and it kept them in silhouette most of the time. It added that hint of mystery. Their sound was raw, like a bunch of scrappy kids running wild in the alleyways.

This was a real meat and potatoes metal band that just puts it out there. There was nothing fancy or flashy. It was just hard and heavy.

Teeth

What can you say about a band that comes on stage and just bites your head off? I would say they were full of ravenous Teeth. The lead singer came on strong like a professional wrestler and confronted the audience with his brand of aggression. It was like a full on body contact trying to split your skull wide open. In fact, a funny moment happened when; he went in for a choke hold on one of the security guards in the pit, just for a photo op. This moment, was when the band seem to take a cue and play at a higher level. This was the beginning of a bit of crowd surfing.

This was a band that was playing like a freight train running downhill with a load of lead and no brakes! The singer finished off the set by coming down from the stage and making sure the mosh pit was in full riot!

Anciients

Anciients changed the energy of the room. They opened up with an epic sound like they were creating an old majestic culture. It felt like a ritualistic and pragmatic sound mixed with intense vocals which drew you into a barren landscape and unfolded a new metal oasis.

The Opera House was a perfect backdrop and housed a room full of heathens seeking a mystic alliance. Anciients were only too happy to comply. They came in from Vancouver to prove that the west coast has some groundbreaking new sounds. Toronto was completely open to this experience.

As they dove deeper into their set, the songs seem to take on longer and more epic sounds. They added some progressive elements and made sure their sound was even tighter than before. This is a band that is out to compete with the world stage of Heavy Metal. There were no flashy gimmicks or cheesy sounds that may appear at some metal shows. In fact they pulled you like a horse to a murky and brackish lake. The crowd drank it all in!

Cancer Bats

The first thing lead singer Liam Cormier said to the excited and loyal audience was, “It’s 20 years and you are still fucking here!” This is no folk festival; this is a band that puts out 200% from beginning to end. I was exhausted just watching them. It is nothing short of a pure adrenaline rush that never quits.

Once you accept this, it is a shot in the arm that spurs your essence into frenzy.

What made this show special was they have been playing this high energy music for 20 years. They loved showing off their gratitude and giving the audience every cent worth.

I enjoyed the story of their young guitar player who bought the Cancer Bats' very first album when he was 9 years old. He not only played that album to death, but that is the album where he taught himself to play guitar. In fact, the entire band played with the unruly angst of a bunch of teenage boys having a blast!

The main reason we all gathered was to celebrate that very first album in its entirety. If you owned the CD Birthing the Giant, they even added the bonus track, which whipped the crowd into a fury! And the fury was so good; the amount of crowd surfers that came through to the front of the stage was phenomenal. If Punk rock was in Hawaii, the beach would have been packed.

Another moment of gratitude came when they thanked Alexisonfire for taking them on tour for a year when they were just starting out. This must have been a huge boost for them as they developed their stage chops. Alexisonfire would be the band to help them with stage presence.

Once the album was done they continued with a few more of their songs and even threw in the Beastie Boys classic “Sabotage”. I felt sorry for the security at this point because they were doing all the heavy lifting and helping people over the barrier. This was nonstop by the end of the evening, you could tell they were getting tired as a couple of people were flailing and looking sloppy as they were being hoisted over.

Set List

Birthing the Giant

Golden Tanks

French Immersion

Grenades

Shillelagh

Butterscotch

Death Bros

Firecrack This

Diamond Mine

100 Grand Canyon

Ghost Bust That

Pneumonia Hawk

Hail Destroyer

Bricks & Mortar

Hammering On (with Brooklyn Doran)

Lucifer's Rocking Chair

Sabotage (Beastie Boys cover)

Winterpeg

So far, this was the highest energy show I have seen this year and I am sure you will read about this in my top ten concerts for 2026 at the end of the year.

Concert Photo Gallery (all photos by: Jojo Taylor)

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Show Date: April 10, 2026