Night Out at Amyl and the Sniffers

Photo Credits: Rue Mathur

It’s been 4 years since Amyl and the Sniffers last played in Toronto, and a lot has changed in their fortunes since then. When the Australian punk rock four-piece brought their 2021 album Comfort To Me to North America, they played to 1400 fans at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, supported by rising local rock n roll riot grrls Bad Waitress, in 2022. Following a cancelled 2025 date due to illness, Amyl finally returned to Canada’s music capital as triumphant rockstars last week.

In recent years, Amyl have gone on to become one of rock’s most celebrated young artists. Revered back home in Australia, playing huge festival stages to ravenous crowds across the UK and Europe and finally breaking through the North American alternative music consciousness in a way that can be described as “mainstream-adjacent”, things were poised to explode for the band in the lead up to their third album, 2024’s Cartoon Darkness. Singer Amy Taylor has joined the ranks of many musicians at the forefront of pop culture courageously voicing their politics and speaking up for marginalised people during dark times: Amy in particular, has talked about gradually beginning to educate herself more on the history of colonialism in Australia and around the world, is a vocal supporter of Palestine and an advocate for women’s rights and has become one of the faces of modern music’s political advocacy.

It was into this world that the band returned with Cartoon Darkness, an album that recognised that the world can seem almost cartoonishly dark at times, and in these trying times, we shine the light a little brighter, come together and experience the joys of life. Amyl do this with maturity, there is a sense of acknowledgment of the state of the world throughout the album, and a gratefulness to be able to bring the light in as we watch the band on stage. And they’re able to produce cartoonishly great moments on stage.

Photo Credits: Rue Mathur

On the edge of Lake Ontario, 10,000 of us stand in anticipation as the lights dim and a breeze blows across the open-air RBC Amphitheatre. The band file onto the stage. Amy Taylor bursts out in a bespoke black leather bikini, punk rock and studded wrist braces. It’s a bit Joan Jett done Amy’s own way, it’s a bit cartoonish and it’s the most rock n’ roll thing I’ve seen. The band kicks straight into ‘Control’, high-octane, loud and with Amy declaring, “I like control” over and over, surveying the crowd with a caricature frown, the crowd slowly getting on their feet and getting into action. The song may date back to 2019, but it fits in perfectly alongside the Cartoon Darkness agenda. We’re off to a great start. 

Amongst the things that have changed for Amyl and co. on from their last showing in Toronto is that this time, alongside Australian noise and punk duo Party Dozen, who prove time and time again that you don’t need a guitar to be in a punk rock band (sometimes, a saxophone and a million effects pedals do the trick quite nicely), Amyl and the Sniffers have brought legendary returning riot grrl godmothers L7 on tour.

Hailing from around the same scenes that threw 90s grunge and riot grrl into the spotlight, L7 were always a bit more metal than the west coast punks, involved in the Subpop scene and a hugely influential band for many women in rock and heavy music that came after them.

“We retired a long time ago,” singer and guitarist Suzi Gardner tells the crowd, “but now we’re back!” Some things may have changed since the band initially split up in 2001: the band are a bit older, fans that could’ve boasted seeing L7 back in the day are seated this time round. Since they first returned to the scene in 2015, their stature as icons of the 90s has grown and their influence has spread across the globe. One of the UK’s most exciting rising electro-rock firebrands, Wargasm, got their name from the L7 song. My friend next to me, 22, laments, “Rue, why didn’t you tell me L7 are so badass?” A new generation of fans will be back to see the band when they go on their farewell tour this October. 

By the time we get to their final song, ‘Fast and Frightening’, the pit is a sea of churning heads, sunburnt Torontonians pogoing to the skies in time with the drums, with a restless energy that’s ready for anything. 

Amyl and the Sniffers have a way of making their energy on stage spread out across the whole arena - we are located in the 200s section and it’s like I’m down in the pit. The band cut large figures on stage, pulling rockstar poses. Guitarist Declan Mehrtens is like an Aussie Eddie Van Halen, effortlessly ripping through long guitar solos newly added to their usually shorter, punkier songs, with his aviators on, shirt half-buttoned. “Get on my level, or get out my way!” declares Amy on ‘Freaks To The Front’. I don’t think any of us are getting cooler than Amyl anytime soon.

No one’s too cool to have fun though: Amy is moshing around the stage with her tongue out, and at one point, there is a cheer given to free ice cream on stage. We’re celebrating the girls drunk at the airport on ‘Me And The Girls’.

Keeping with the themes of Cartoon Darkness, Amy also takes a moment on stage to voice her support for Palestine, recognise ongoing and historical colonialism, and voice her frustration with politicians around the world, while also declaring her faith in people  they meet using their voices and actions to push back on it across the world. She then launches into ‘Facts’, a b-side that is perhaps the fastest, most furious punk song of the night and the Cartoon Darkness era. 

There are huge moments on hits like the sadly evergreen ‘Knifey’ and Amyl’s defiant rallying cry to back oneself up, ‘Jerkin’’. Haters be damned, Amyl and the Sniffers’ big dreams have taken them to some of the biggest stages in the world— this tour will include a night at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. As Amyl effortlessly command the sea of adoring fans in some of the biggest rooms they’ve ever played, it’s hard to deny it: as Amy sings on the song ‘Big Dreams’, Amyl have never been dull ones, always been big stars, and they’re only getting bigger from here. 

For more from Rue follow her Instagram @yellowbritroad and check out her own music blog Sounds Live Magazine!