{"id":795761,"date":"2026-07-11T21:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795761\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T21:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:13:08","slug":"the-templars-new-york-street-punk-legends-return-to-vancouver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795761\/","title":{"rendered":"The Templars: New York street punk legends return to Vancouver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Long Island&#8217;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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>They are one of my favourite bands &#8220;, he says of the Templars, &#8220;and as a teenager,\u00a0I used to walk around listening to them in my headphones and feeling proud that I had found my identity in this subculture.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>These days, Faithfull has been a skinhead for longer than he has not, and he&#8217;s still a huge fan of the Templars.\u00a0About 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&#8217; &#8220;City Traffic&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0from their set.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0We confess to not really knowing three of the other openers, Abbotsford-based Mad World (playing their Vancouver debut), Winnipeg&#8217;s Pure Impact, or Vancouver&#8217;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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mind you, the band on the bill who we have seen (three times now!) is Greg Huff&#8217;s new band First Attack. With Bishops Green on hiatus, Huff has taken up guitar and changed his musical approach: it&#8217;s still Oi! music, but Huff&#8217;s voice is gravellier than it was for Bishops Green and the songs are a bit more guitar-centric. Try &#8220;On the Other Side&#8221; off their debut LP .<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0. The whole album is great!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The gig marks the Templars&#8217; first Vancouver show since October of 2002. NotYerBuddy&#8217;s Seamus McGrath writes on Facebook\u00a0that they played a poorly-attended show at the Cobalt when it was run by wendythirteen as Vancouver&#8217;s Hardcore Bar. To McGrath&#8217;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 &#8220;six to eight really stoked skinheads on the floor&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They played an incredible set chock-full of the classics&#8221;, McGrath wrote, adding that &#8220;they were sweethearts at the merch table afterwards to boot. We left feeling mighty grateful and fairly certain we&#8217;d never see them up this way again.&#8221; (We&#8217;re told that the Templars will have vinyl with them at tonight&#8217;s show, which is exciting, since the band&#8217;s music is rarely seen in stores here).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, First Attack bassist Noah points out that there will also be what he calls a &#8220;reggae recovery day at the American&#8221;, across the street from the Cobalt, on Saturday\u00a0from noon to 5pm, involving DJs Your Man Flint (Mike Flintoff of the Tranzmitors) and Big Punch Sound spinning vinyl 45s.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the Templars 2002 gig, tonight&#8217;s show is sold out, but there will be very limited tickets available at the door, so if you&#8217;ve missed out on advance tickets, be front-of-the-line when the doors open at 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 \u00a0 Long Island&#8217;s legendary street punk\/ Oi! band the Templars will headline a stacked bill at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[76,49,48,8497,569,16291,75,1048,1187,1554,2998,890,341,13117,3560,404,348,55],"class_list":["post-795761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dining","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-food","tag-lifestyle","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-restaurants","tag-shopping","tag-tv","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}