Face To Face Farewell Tour w/ My Chemical Romance
Tues. August 24, 2004 @ Kool Haus, Toronto

It came as a shock to most fans that this past spring, Face to Face, one of the cornerstones of 90’s skate punk, announced that they were ending the band. The reasons were not out of anger, only the fact that the band had nothing left to say. Even that being said, fans felt that they were owed a final tour so that they could hear the songs that had meant so much to them one more time. After much pressing the band realized it was indeed a smart decision to give one last tour and not end on an abrupt note. And so it went that on the 24th of August, 2004, Face to Face would play their last show in Toronto.

The night started out on a porch with some cheap beer and friends arriving one after the other from out of town to help celebrate this momentous occasion. How nostalgic it was when we were all playing Face to Face covers on acoustic guitars and skateboarding in front the house. And the nostalgia wouldn’t be complete without angry dickhead neighbour calling the cops for skating outside his house, which is coincidentally attached to our house. Damn the man! People over thirty and the cops are always trying to ruin your good time dude! Now off to the show to burn off some half drunk, pseudo teenage skater angst!

It was nice to walk into the show and find a crowd closer to my age and not a bunch of Avril Lavigne clones acting like they belong. Since the band had most of their success in the 90’s there weren’t any kids to get in the way of a good old school pit forming in front of the stage. We missed the opening act My Chemical Romance due to bad gauging of time. Judging by what time the ticket says the doors open and how many opening acts there are you can usually show up exactly when the act you want to see hits the stage. However Moneen, who was originally supposed to play, dropped off the bill to support Dashboard Confessional in England. We figured that they would be replaced, when in fact they weren’t and to make matters worse the other opener didn’t get across the border. This chain of events caused us to just narrowly make it into the Kool Haus in time for Face to Face’s first song. But as soon as the band took the stage everything was alright again.

They burst through three of their staple songs before even saying a word to the crowd, which included “Resignation” a popular song of theirs off of the more alternative slanted self-titled album. Rarely stopping for breaks, other than to speak briefly to the crowd about the life of the band and thanking everyone for their support, they kept churning out all of our favourites. “Don’t Turn Away”, their first album and a big favourite of fans featured a lot of songs in the set, even some new songs made an appearance, but the best element was that this band may never play again and because of that they were playing all of their indie hits. Because the tour was prompted by fans it seemed as though the band was concentrating on assurance that everyone was satisfied with the songs, not trying to satisfy there own needs as artists which happens all to often. Through their career Face to Face have always kept their integrity as artists but it has always been apparent that their fans are just as important as their artistic statements. They have always made sure their fans have a good time and that’s exactly what was taking place at the show. Not suprisingly the song “Disconnected” was played towards the end — this was not surprising since it was the last tour but a bit of a treat as well since it was to Face to Face as “Satisfaction” is to the Rolling Stones. Tendency not to play this song was always high when you went to a Face show so it was good to hear live finally.

I was alone in the crowd by the end of the show and although energy was high and it was really friggin loud it was nice to see them off by myself and not feel obligated to comment to anyone at that moment how I was feeling. And I was feeling great. It’s odd that I may never see this band again but I felt no depression whatsoever, they came and delivered exactly what everyone came to see and didn’t treat it as a last show at all. It was a goodbye that felt like a high five. See ya later guys. — Jackson Main