Montreal punks got lucky at Pouzza Fest 13

Assembling the city’s punk rock faithful for its 13th edition since launching in 2011, Pouzza Fest took over the Quartier des Spectacles with a long weekend that filled downtown venues and a free outdoor stage with spikes, denim, leather, plaid, patches, booze, tattoos, hairdos and high-watt riffage. 

As a lover of at least some of those things, and an enthusiastic fan of Montreal’s festival scene, it seemed high time to finally check it out up close. So I invited myself to tag along as a lurker, take in the experience and report from the field from an annual favourite that, this year, invited upwards of 150 bands to shred it up for the punk community.

Friday’s heat and humidity thankfully never quite delivered on the worst case potential of storm-watch panic. The cooler evening air lured me to Pouzza’s outdoor Jardin des bières stage before heading to a 9:35 p.m. date with The OBGMs at Club Soda. 

The party was well underway, with a sizable crowd starting their holiday weekend in fine form. As profoundly un-punk as this may be, it would be a dereliction of duty not to mention the SPVM cop standing watch beside the site entrance. Hands on hip, the clean cut, middle aged officer was discretely air strumming a thumb against his belt while bopping his head along to the catchy rhythms of Québécois ’90s party-punkers Les Marmottes Aplaties (which loosely translates to “groundhog roadkill,” in case you’re wondering.)

If you don’t know, punk rock is officially a family business. Scores of parents with their young kids were among the truly multi-generational audience singing their way along a trip down memory lane with Les Marmottes, who would be followed by scene peers Vulgaires Machins. 

For a festival that boasts major national and international artists, year after year, Pouzza is always sure to slap a fat “Je me souviens” on its lineup, placing homegrown headliners in their rightful place alongside imported marquee-name guests. 

While the outdoor party kept gaining steam, I headed to Club Soda to spend some quality time with one of this country’s very finest, The OBGMs. 

Over the past decade, the Toronto outfit has taken measured steps toward an ever-increasing level of excellence, as exhibited most comprehensively on their latest, last year’s masterful Sorry, It’s Over. 

Having last seen them in concert during the distanced, seated and masked prohibition era of late summer 2021, the payoff of a full-scale live experience coupled with the strength of the new material was extra satisfying. 

From the opening notes to the final echo of feedback, The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores gave it everything, taking full command of the room effortlessly. They’ll be back in Montreal to headline at Turbo Haüs in September. Tell a friend. 

Before calling it a night, I decided to go check out an Atlanta band called The Carolyns upstairs at Café Cléopatra. With less scandalous fare booked with increased frequency at Cleo’s over the past couple of years, the venue has lost some of the sleazy nudie bar charm it once oozed, but it still gives good rock-dive energy. The Carolyns seemed happy to bask in it, playing some pretty straightforward, pleasingly pop-ish punk to a decent crowd.

Despite on-and-off showers the next day, the rocksteady and reggae of seasoned New York crowd pleasers The Slackers got the punks, rudies, goths, their children and everyone in between out for a little easy Saturday skanking. The early evening outdoor set managed at least to evoke a facsimile of a warm, sunny day that I’m sure we all wished we’d had — and kids, that ain’t bad. 

A little rain toward the end of the show did nothing to dampen the mood, and frontman Vic Ruggiero looking like an insurance guy on his day off due to lost luggage was hella dad-ly.

I took a beat and headed home to eat, rest and pray that a 10-after-midnight encounter with NOBRO at Foufs would start on time.

So actually, I didn’t pray. That was bullshit fluff literary licence. Maybe that’s why it took the sound team a little while to get the room wired up for the punches, kicks and wails that the freshly minted Juno winners excel at landing. Pouzza marked the hometown debut of the band’s newest configuration, which finds a new drummer, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist/percussionist in the mix. Now featuring five heads, NOBRO is as fIerce as ever. 

It took a song or two to get the jam-packed room on board after the prolonged lull of that soundcheck. But Foufs was soon shaking as the crowd ate up every lick the Set Your Pussy Free stars have in them, belted out with full ferocity. Worth missing the last metro and skimping on an Uber to wait in the rain for a 2 a.m. night bus, all the way.

By Sunday, the final day of the fest, the odds of a surprise guest appearance from that big flaming orb in the sky that early civilization once worshipped were apparently pretty slim. That didn’t stop Pouzza from raging on. Indoor lineups were stacked, and the triple-header billed to close out the fest’s outdoor stage was nothing short of inspired. 

Committed to spending a couple of hours at the mercy of the elements, no matter what, I first killed a little time and stayed dry popping in and out of venues, which was how I found myself pleasantly entertained by a young Vermont-based foursome called Vallory Falls at Cleo’s. Their best bits of composition reminded me of ‘90s punk underdogs Seaweed, which is pretty fucking high praise. 

Chatting with singer/guitarist Tristan Gilliss afterward, I learned that Pouzza was their first Canadian show; that he and his partner, guitarist Meghan Burke, have a cat named after a Weakerthans song, which in a roundabout way is how they wound up playing the second floor of a Montreal strip club; and that they had protested U.S. vice-weirdo JD Vance’s recent visit to Sugarbush, VT, and flipped off his motorcade. With a firm handshake, I can now claim one degree of separation from giving a real, live “fuck you” to the clown regime down south. 

With that, it was time to head out to the muddy shores of the Jardin des bières and the anarchistic stylings of illustrious U.K. punks The Subhumans. Under a sea of umbrellas, Pouzza remained undaunted, the pale grey sky providing an appropriately austere backdrop for frontman Dick Lucas’s colourful presence and the unrelenting, urgent stomp of the band’s anti-establishment, pro-humanity anthems. 

The punk rock playbook that preaches unity against authoritarianism and hate can easily be reduced to a tired trope when it’s phoned in for the millionth time by a legacy act, but after all these decades, Lucas’s outrage with the state of the world and belief in the power of the 99% remains palpably sincere. For just short of an hour, the OG punk ethos was alive, well and even un-cynically inspiring, and the Subhumans fucking killed it. 

As most of the front stage area crowd temporarily dissipated and the precipitation let up from heavier drops to a light drizzle, ground conditions were messy, but not so treacherously muddy to stop me from moving toward the eye of the deluge to see one of my favourite bands ever, Fucked Up, was about to hammer down with on Pouzza.  

Would a bunch of gushing declarations and descriptive sentences matter, even if I tried? The Toronto hardcore virtuosos attacked like their lives depended on it, absolutely crushing their way through a set that served up a little bit of everything from a songbook now two decades deep, which includes one of this century’s undisputed greatest albums, so far. Fucked Up can’t, won’t and don’t slow down. The Canadian arts community is all the richer for it. 

As suddenly they had arrived, Fucked Up was gone. The reality of being soaking wet in shorts and a hoodie set in. Though I’d hoped to tough it out for a final boss level battle with outdoor closers and Montreal gods Voivod, I wasn’t ready to risk hypothermia for it. There’s always a next time. 

I wasn’t about to hit the clubs all night, either, but someone had told me that a band called Toys That Kill were worth seeing at Foufs, and the timing just happened to work out. Best case, I’d hear something amazing. Worst case, I’d get warm. 

We’ll split the difference. I was mostly curious about the fact that these dudes are from San Pedro, California, birthplace of The Minutemen. While Toys That Kill seemed pretty decent at knocking out distortion-heavy, 4/4 bop, heirs to the legacy of Watt, Hurley and Boon they were not. Ready to call it a wrap, I headed downstairs and out the door, enjoying the irony that “Corona” was playing over the bar soundsystem. 

I came, I lurked and I witnessed why fans love and support Pouzza. As a Johnny-come-lately with no skin in the game, with respect to festival veterans, please take my perspective with a grain of salt. It’s no secret that Pouzza is super fun. 

As someone who knows his way around a festival, though, I can safely say that for the potential next newbie in line, Pouzza gives punk rock fans a great cultural experience for their concert buck, rain or shine. ■

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