Metal band welcomes audience of elementary school students to sonic landscape of eternal darkness
The Quebec City, Canada-based band clearly contains multitudes
Music Features The Beginning
On Quebecois metal band Obvurt’s website, the group’s name is described as a combination of “Obvert (to oppose) and Hurt (to wound)“—a name that was created by band member Philippe Drouin because it “relates to his particular turn of fate.” Everything about the group’s sound—pummeling drums, atonal riff, their aesthetic long hair, black t-shirts, Giger-indebted album covers—suggests that Obvert are, indeed, the kind of band you think they are.
But they contain multitudes, as is made very clear by their recent sun-bleached outdoor concert for a bunch of elementary school kids in Quebec City.
Obvurt have posted their performance at l’École primaire Saint-Albert-Le-Grand on YouTube. It’s what you might expect in a lot of senses. The set kicks off with brooding Dracula’s castle organs and singer/guitarist Drouin growling over nefarious guitars and pounding double kicks. But it also features a bunch of little kids hopping up and down to the music in a school parking lot, and cheering in excited little kid voices between songs.
Consequence Of Sound writes that the show came about when Druin, a music teacher, was invited to celebrate the release of Obvurt’s first album, The Beginning, alongside the end of the school year at Saint-Albert-Le-Grand, where he teaches. Druin says he “wasn’t sure at first” about the idea, but that “the kids really enjoyed the performance, which was very inspiring to us.”
The students were also familiar with Druin’s incredible recovery from a 2016 car crash—likely the “particular turn of fate” that inspired the name Obvurt—which forced him to relearn guitar as a left-handed player after injuries left him “unable to play right-handed.”
In any case, the concert shows very clearly that elementary school-aged children are wild for Obvurt. If you’re looking for something to throw on during a play date, their music is available at Bandcamp.
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12 Comments
This is awesome! I wish metal bands had played at my school.This is also a great example of why you don’t record concerts with a phone.
Sorry, but the best kid-torturing metal show was the AV club’s show with the Melvins in Chicago. Sucker the kids in with offers of free ice cream (!), then punch them in the face with a heavy ass cover of Graveyard by the Butthole Surfers…
So awesome to see the looks of utter confusion and pain on the kids faces… hehehe
This is awesome. Nice to see a younger generation getting into metal.
Reposting this as a reply because the writers here never bother to take people out of the gray…Wow, the AV Club seems to have deleted the classic Undercover featuring Melvins giving out free ice cream to kids… but at least the performance is on YouTube:
“Unleashing eternal darkness doesn’t pay the rent.” – Kaossandra
To be young again and enjoy everything and anything without context or reality… anyways, this is awesome and I’m glad the band had great fun with it as well.
I love the drummer just chuckling to himself at the whole scene.
I like the guy behind them filming it on his phone who appears to be trying to get tiny children to make devil’s horns signs.
I request the next venue be the local nursing home.
Wow, the AV Club seems to have deleted the classic Undercover featuring Melvins giving out free ice cream to kids seems… but at least the performance is on YouTube:
Can you imagine the outcry if something like this happened in the U.S.? “Oh my Gawd, they’re teaching ‘em the devil’s ways!”
kvlt