SIX SHOWS IN TORONTO THIS JULY

MEGACITY MADNESS. PLUS A BUNCHA DUMB STORIES.

Apr 08, 2025

HELLO H8ERS!

Yeah we saw all the angry Toronto freaks in the comment section, did you really think we’d do our hometown dirty like that? GROW UP.

6 TORONTO SHOWS. Starting with a house show. Each one bigger than the last. A “tour” of Toronto taking us through the venues we came up playing over the past decade. MEGACITY MADNESS BABY.

PRESALE 10AM WEDNESDAY

Presale starts at 10am tomorrow, password: MEGACITY

On sale everywhere else FRIDAY at 10am

This is gonna be really special. We’ve been thinking about it forever. Here’s a short (long) history of PUP shows in Toronto, why we’ve chosen these specific venues, and what this all means to us.

SHOW #1 - HOUSE SHOW (ask a punk) - JULY 13

Imagine this. It’s 2011. Me and my best friends start a band called Topanga and we play almost exclusively basement shows. One night we play a show at my friend Bert’s house. We start playing our songs and everyone leaves. But then we cover Gob’s classic Canadian pop punk anthem I Hear You Calling, and everyone runs downstairs and goes off. Then we play one of our songs and people leave, so we play I Hear You Calling again. We finish and someone yells “PLAY IT AGAIN”. So we do. 8 more times. It rips. There are sadly no photos or videos from that night, but here’s a video of us playing I Hear You Calling later that same year at Sneaky Dees.

Which brings us to….

SHOW #2 - SNEAKY DEE’S (w/ Bad Waitress) - JULY 14, 19+

It’s 2012. Topanga puts out our first 7-inch. The A-side is called “Oceans” and the B-Side is a lil song called “Mabu”. Damn. We put on a release show at Sneaky Dees, and for the first time ever, we sell out a headline show.

Here’s the first picture ever taken of us together at Sneaky Dee’s. It’s also (I think) the first time a blog ever wrote about us.

We’d go on to play a ton of other shows at Sneaky Dees, including our S/T record release. It’s also where we shot “THIS STREAM SUCKS ASS” (2020, the greatest live stream ever recorded), plus the music video for “PARANOID” (2025).

SHOW #3 - LEE’S PALACE (w/ Solids) - JULY 15, 19+

It’s 2013. We change our name. Our first show ever as PUP is at Lee’s Palace opening for Titus Andronicus and The So So Glos (both of whom are heroes of ours). We play to almost nobody, but it’s still incredible. Fast forward one year. It’s 2014, we’ve just come home from our first ever, disastrous US tour, supporting our friends SOLIDS. We play to 10 people a night for 5 weeks straight. But we have the best time. And when we get back to Canada, our first record’s been out for a bit and a few people seem to really care about it. We book our next Toronto show at Lee’s Palace and we’re floored when it sells out. 500 people, the biggest show we’d played to date.

SHOW #4 - THE CONCERT HALL (w/ Jeff Rosenstock (solo) - JULY 17, All Ages

Ok, we have never played this venue. When we were kids it was an all ages venue called The Masonic Temple, where MuchMusic used to put on all their shows. Our high school bands all dreamt of playing there. It was a legitimate life goal. It closed down before PUP came into existence, and we never had a chance to fullfill that dream. In 2023 it finally reopened and holy shit we’re about to check this mf off the bucketlist.

SHOW #5 - THE DANFORTH MUSIC HALL (w/ Cadence Weapon) - July 18, All Ages

It’s 2016. We put out a record called The Dream Is Over, and things are going pretty good. DVP becomes a staple at punk and emo club nights in the city and sometimes we hear PUP songs on the radio when we’re driving around. It’s surreal. We decide to take a huge leap and play this really big venue called The Danforth Music Hall. We wonder if anyone will show up. It sells out in the first hour. So we put another show on sale and it sells out in the first day. We put a third show up and it sells out too. We can’t believe it. In total it’s 7x more tickets than the Lee’s Palace show. We’re in way over our heads but the shows are fun as hell. We’d go on to headline The Danforth a few more times, including twice more when we put out Morbid Stuff.

SHOW 6 - HISTORY (w/ NOBRO + Chastity) - July 19, All Ages

After covid, we put out a record called The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND and go on a tour we call “PUP RETURNS, THANK FUCKING GOD”. The tour ends with two sold out nights at History, a huge 2,500 person venue. After months on tour, paranoid that we’d get COVID and have to cancel everything, we make it to the finish line and all of our friends and family come to the shows and it’s an unreal feeling.