Let's dive into another single-band post on this snowy Tuesday afternoon, courtesy of local/Barrie crossover thrash quintet Spades GT's activity from last month, so what's new to report from the G.T.A.? We'll actually flash back to October to start for some all-too-rare concert videos of theirs that are A. raw live footage, B. the full songs, and C. horizontally shot! These were filmed at their set opening for The Exploited at The Rockpile in Toronto on October 19th, and are courtesy of attendee Jake Disman, who has filmed them at multiple gigs over the years, most recently at the Steve Edwin McLeod tribute concert at the same venue in March. Only uploaded to his YouTube channel last month, these were curiously uploaded intermixed with other concert videos from different events over the course of a week. Jake uploaded eight songs from this night in four 2 song chunks (all but their closer "Hands"), so what can you see here?
The videos include their usual set openers "They Live" and "Rise", plus "Sewer City Radio" and "Demons", "Cenobites" and "Wrecked" (featuring The Fast Life's Andrew Moorehouse on guest vocals), and as embedded below, their third and fourth songs "Red" and "United". Jake had a good high vantage point to capture the full band in action, if with occasionally too-deep stage lighting, and it looks like everyone had a blast with the ripping originals during Spades' set! We'll have more from this show in an upcoming post, but give Jake's really solid videos from October a watch above and below!
When we last left off with J.D., Daniel, Matthew, Sean, and Tyler, they were gearing up for their return to The Bovine Sex Club (that is still its real name!) in Toronto on November 7th, where they and guitarist Daniel Horton's other punk band The Fast Life opened for their their buddies in G.F.U.. The three bands had joined forces for a Barrie gig in October, among multiple other bookings, but this was reportedly Spades' last Toronto show of the year. The recap video (vertical as ever) went live on their Facebook page four days later, and it is externally embeddable without an audio content match! The first minute of the 4+ minute video sees drummer Tyler Reiner plugging the concert, their next gig in Delhi, and their eventful past year in general.The first half is all outside of the venue mingling, where we get a good look at Fang's dapper kilt, and it's encouraging to see that Sean hasn't been kicked out of Spades GT yet!
Once we move inside The Bovine, clips are shown from most bands (no Loaded Dice though), with Spades pictured playing "Wrecked" at the 2:55 mark, albeit for less than 10 seconds total and from a distant spot with fans' blocking much of the view. After seeing a G.F.U. clip, we hear more of their frontman Jeremy "Jayboe" Cibirka's platform for his Toronto mayoral campaign, before performers from that night gather at video's end, with Daniel saying that they "crushed it". I'll take his word on that, but check out the entertaining recap video for yourselves below!
One week after that gig, the former Jack Spades made their first ever trip to Delhi (pronounced "dell-high"), which is outside of Simcoe and a half hour southwest of Brantford. The November 14th concert at Capitol 33 saw them open for Toronto metal legends Anvil (featuring Tyler's dad Robb Reiner on drums), in the first time that Spades have opened for Anvil since February of last year. While the band was highly complimentary of the concert and venue on Facebook afterwards, and promised to return to Delhi next year, they did not post a recap video from this concert, at least not yet. A couple days later, Spades GT announced their second 2026 show, which will see them head to Guelph for a concert at Jimmy Jazz on January 16th alongside Stand Against Fear and Prior Convictions. If those names are familiar, it's because ex-Spades GT bassist James Roy Daley is an alumnus of those bands too, so how's that for degrees of separation between them?
Promotion says that this is Spades GT's Guelph debut, which didn't seem right, but in researching, they had a Guelph cancellation in July when Brazil's Kaos Attack dropped out of an Ontario tour run, and they had been promoting a planned set at Jimmy Jazz in March 2023 alongside Stand Against Fear (here's proof), but they quietly dropped out and were replaced by Knifehammer in the preceding weeks. Good to see the guys trying a Guelph concert again, and hopefully this one sticks! They hope to play more cities and markets for the first time in 2026, so keep that in mind, especially if you're in Southern Ontario. On November 18th, Spades announced their final show of 2025, a headlining date in their Barrie homebase on December 13th (yes, this Saturday) at C.W. Coop's on a doom metal-laden bill that will also feature Hamilton notables Pale Horse Ritual. The band also claims that this will be their "last one (in Barrie) for a while".
How long is "a while"? That's to be determined, but this isn't the first time they've hyped a year-ending Barrie show thusly, and they're teasing a big year ahead with "lots of new things coming your way", so we'll have to see what's next from the guys after Saturday's Barrie concert! We'll let you know when more comes out re: that show, the potential Delhi recap video, and their 2026 plans in due course, so raise 'em up, cause a scene, and visit the above links for more from Spades GT! Thanks everyone!
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