PUP share year-in-the-making Concrete video and new song If This Is It ahead of UK dates
PUP have paired a long-awaited video for Concrete with a new track, If This Is It, pulled from the sessions for last year’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? on Rise Records.
WATCH/LISTEN TO “IF THIS IT” HERE
The new visual for Concrete is a deliberately handmade piece of stop-motion work, assembled from 2,300 frames and built around magazine pages, tabloids, fake ads and zines. Director Sterling Larose filmed the band performing before sending more than 1,000 frames out to 13 designers and animators, who returned them as printed artwork to be photographed back into animation. The result took close to a year to complete, with the process slowed by technical problems and the sheer scale of the idea.
Stefan Babcock said the band shot the video in Vancouver on the way to Australia, then largely assumed it had vanished into a technical black hole.
“About a year ago, on our way to Australia, we decided to stop over in Vancouver, visit our pal Sterling, and shoot a video for Concrete, one of our favourite songs off the last record,” he said. “Months passed and it seemed like it had disappeared into some technical abyss never to be seen again. And then a year later, seemingly out of thin air, Sterling (and the video) surfaced. And we love it to death.”
He added: “We’re fully aware that releasing a video for a song that’s already been out a year is a stupid thing to do. But we don’t care. At this point, we’re in an incredibly lucky position with PUP to mostly do whatever we want with this band, and for us, it was completely worth the wait.”
If This Is It, meanwhile, arrives as a fresh cut from the same album sessions, keeping the Toronto band’s current run fed with new material while they stay on the road behind Who Will Look After The Dogs?.
UK shows run through festival season
The release lands as PUP head into a busy stretch of live dates, beginning with Outbreak Festival in Manchester this weekend before stops at London’s Crystal Palace Park, Signature Brew Blackhorse Road, Sheffield’s Foundry and Brighton’s Chalk, plus a two-day set at 2000 Trees in Cheltenham.
Tickets are on sale now.
- June 27 – Manchester, UK – Outbreak Fest
- June 28 – London, UK – Crystal Palace Park
- June 30 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere
- July 2 – Werchter, BE – Rock Werchter
- July 4 – London, UK – Signature Brew Blackhorse Road
- July 5 – Sheffield, UK – Foundry
- July 6 – Brighton, UK – Chalk
- July 8 & 9 – Cheltenham, UK – 2000trees Festival
- August 23 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheater
- September 19 – Chicago, IL – Riot Fest
- October 4 – Santa Ana, CA – Neverender Festival
- October 19 – Wilmington, DE – The Queen
- October 20 – Virginia Beach, VA – Elevation 27
- October 21 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
- October 23-25 – Gainesville, FL – FEST
- October 26 – Birmingham, AL – The Saturn
- October 27 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi Annex
- October 28 – Louisville, KY – Mercury Ballroom
- October 29 – Nashville, TN – Eastside Bowl
