You invite Amy Winehouse to the music section’s crack party, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two CDs off the Straight ’s Top 50, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whine.

Dear Payback Time: To quote Adrian Mack in his Gallows review: “Poor Frank Carter”? The only thing poor about the Gallows show was their decision to play knowing full well their frontman was unable to perform. More surprising was Mack’s failure to take the band to task on this in his review or, for that matter, any number of other dumb things that happened at the show. Why not lambaste this “hardcore” act for clichéd statements like “Hello Vancouver!” and “I want to see the biggest circle pit Vancouver has to offer right here”? “Hello Vancouver”? Fuck me, where are we, watching KISS at the Coliseum? And the circle-pit request, my God. Any band that needs to ask for a pit is either not delivering the goods on-stage or is under the delusion that these moments can be manufactured. Other examples include Carter’s acknowledgment to the crowd that Gallows were quite possibly wasting people’s money with their performance (“How much did you all pay to come see us?”) and the ever-present macho play-through-the-pain bravado (yawn), which culminated with the tantrumlike gesture of plowing the mike stand into the stage before he left. Carter was in physical pain. Gallows should have sacked up and admitted that it would compromise his ability to be his fireplug best, issued a statement, cancelled the show, and given us our money back. And Adrian Mack should have reflected these points in his article instead of going for some watery middle ground that didn’t serve audience or band.

> Matt Pilfold

Adrian Mack replies: Dearest Matt—Whoa, back up there! You don’t tell me what I “should” or shouldn’t write, okay? That’s the job of Gallows’ record label, Epitaph. Anyway, I’m bummed that you didn’t like the piece, and I understand how frustrating it is when the Georgia Straight consistently and week after week fails to intuit precisely what Matt Pilfold thinks about stuff. But to answer at least one of your points specifically: I felt that Gallows’ questionable decision to play was implied in the review. It’s a lot like your questionable decision to go to a putative hardcore show in 2008 expecting anything but the clichés you’re moaning about. Do I really need to underline such faulty thinking when most of our readers are smart enough to do it themselves? Sorry we disagree, but I’m not in the business of explicitly declaring what a band “should” or shouldn’t do, in much the same way that I’ll refrain from revealing whether or not I think Matt Pilfold “should” or shouldn’t grab a copy of Black Flag’s Slip It In and then go fuck himself bloody with all 12 inches of it.

For taking the time to abuse us, Matt Pilfold takes home a Payback Time jackpot that’s grown to eight discs and tickets to four Live Nation club shows. You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an e-mail to payback@straight.com.