Day 1:
Montreal’s Pouzza Fest's fifth installment came took place in the downtown core of the city over the long weekend and while it seemed to have happened in the blink of an eye, there was never a shortage of music, comedy and poutine to fill more than enough of your share.

Previous lineups included a wide array of punk bands including Dillinger Four, The Lawrence Arms, Bad Astronaut, The Flatliners, Cheap Girls, The Front Bottoms, Good Riddance, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes among many others that set a higher bar each year than the years before. This year’s lineup included an interesting mix of many punk sub-genres such as folk-punk, ska-punk and even metal-punk with bands like Municipal Waste, The Planet Smashers, The Penske File, The Dwarves, 88 Fingers Louie, Cayetana, PUP, Teenage Bottlerocket, Drag The River, The Bruce Lee Band and Knapsack with a whole slew of other mid-to-small level support acts. Even with such a lineup however I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole festival seemed to have shrunk a bit considering how venues used previously by the festival in the Montreal core such as Club Soda and Metropolis – both venues with a capacity of over 900 and 2350 respectively where not included this year leaving Les Foufones Electriques as the largest indoor venue to see a show for the fest with a capacity of just over 600. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as almost all of the bands and performances were nothing short of stellar and the crowd always was warm and receptive and enjoying themselves at all times.

My first day there started early Friday morning, driving from good ol’ Toronto with a couple of buds of mine who decided as the drive would take about a good six hours to Montreal we would leave early morning to get there in the afternoon which would leave us enough time to get a hotel room for the weekend and some breathing space before the first bands would start that night. After a smooth six hours driving traffic-free and talking about various stuff including punk rock and cute local radio hosts (for some reason) we ended up in Montreal where to our unfortunate bad luck we couldn’t find a hotel room with a reasonable rate so we ended up driving around for a couple of hours trying to find some last minute cancellations. We did eventually find a room but it probably would have been in our best interest to have booked it in advance when we had the chance but oh well, live and learn I guess.

When we finally settled in, we picked up our passes and met up with the Deforesters as my buddy manages and does live sound for them to figure out their itinerary for the night. They were set to play Piranha Bar that night so we had to figure out gear and load in and the little details related to that. Once that was all said and done we had about an hour before Banquets, the first band on my checklist was about to start at Les Foufones Electriques and I had realized I didn’t really have even a half-decent meal since the morning before we left so what better way to introduce yourself to Montreal than to get some poutine? Dropping in to La Belle Province on the corner of Saint-Laurent and Ste Catherines to grab a plate – this place is far from the best poutine in the city but hey, honestly where they are located and the fact that they’re open really late sure helps when you’re staying out late to catch bands and need something to eat cheap and quick.

Seeing Banquets up first was a welcome start to the whole festival, their brand of Americana-Punk seemed to lighten up the place to quite a few people already in the venue. They have some really cool songwriting and their performance was really well executed and seemed to be reminiscent of The Gaslight Anthem which is only fitting as both bands are from New Jersey so there’s a definite connection there. Cool start to the night for sure. Up next on the bill was the one and only Cayetana, a trio brandishing their own style of alternative/indie punk which was a great fit to follow Banquets. Frontwoman Augusta Koch had some good moments in her performance vocal-wise albeit she seemed a little nervous at times which I’m not sure why, the crowd loved the performance. Her nervousness seemed to take over at times especially when she mistakenly turned the volume knob down on the guitar leaving the vocals, bass and drums on their own, an honest mistake and it happens to the best of us. Regardless the crowd was forgiving and after a quick laugh the whole band continued and finished up their set to a great finish.

Jeff Rosentock came shortly after, playing various tracks from both I Look Like Shit and We Cool?. The band’s performances were honestly what I thought one of the best of the whole festival even though at that point it just began. Very jumpy and engaging, fans were constantly jumping on stage to sing and crowd surf at all points of the set especially when “Nausea” came on, everyone just lost it. If you watch the music video for the song, that’s a pretty good indicator of how their set was (besides the guy showing the middle finger). A couple of shout outs to PUP and Fake Problems were said and “You, In Weird Cities” was played with everyone singing along to the ‘Woahs’ at the end of the song, it was really fun to sing along to. The set finished up in what I thought was too soon as they were definitely an exciting band to watch and really set the tone for the rest of the night.

At that point I had came to a cross roads in deciding which band to see at that moment. Stay at Foufs for PUP? (I did hear they did a cover of Sabotage with Jeff Rosenstock!). Down the street to Katacombes for Pkew Pkew Pkew? Maybe TypeSetter at Theatre Ste Catherines? I eventually chose to hit the Joey Cape acoustic show at the outdoors Pabst Stage just up the road. Joey Cape has always been one of my favourite punk rock musician/songwriters and seeing him with Lagwagon for the Hang tour last year was one of the best shows I went to in 2014 so I definitely owed it to him to go see his performance. Backed by his piano player who also goes under his own solo moniker Brian Wahlstrom the set was not one to disappoint. Playing various songs from Lagwagon, Bad Astronaut along with his solo work, it’s good to see that someone like Joey Cape still continues to perform and write new music not just with Lagwagon but other projects too – it’s hard to come across someone who does as much as he is doing for as long as he has especially in punk rock (Granted, Lagwagon was quiet for about 9 years). He even went on to play “Burden of Proof” and “Reign”, both tracks from 2014’s Hang and the pianos from Brian really smoothened out the deal and added that extra “Umpf” to the song which at that point after a few beers it really hit the spot in it’s more or less epic sound. “Making Friends” was also performed which in my opinion sounds a lot of better on an acoustic than a full band, seriously. His merch was really hilarious too, a shirt proclaiming that “Joey Cape is Bullshit” – something I picked up without a second thought, best shirt of the festival for sure.

I began slightly jogging back to Foufones Electriques to catch Fake Problems which had started while Joey Cape was finishing up but I’m glad I caught them. I heard about these guys back in 2012 and this was actually my first time seeing them live – their performance was a cool blend of light, indie punk that almost anyone would enjoy. And they did, it again seemed fitting for them to be on the same bill as Jeff Rosenstock (both of which are SideOne Dummy artists) the crowd loved them as they played songs from Real Ghosts Caught on Tape such as “Songs for Teenagers” and “Soulless” - funny enough that release was their last full-length to be released and is from 2010 but that all doesn’t matter since they killed the performance and by then the venue was packed and it was the perfect lead in for the headliner, Teenage Bottlerocket.

At that point I was seriously debating about whether to stay at Foufs for Teenage Bottlerocket or head down to Katacombes for Beach Slang but eventually just decided to stay for Teenage Bottlerocket. They’re not necessarily one of my favourite bands, like they’re cool and all but their whole Ramonescore sound gets boring after 3-4 songs but then again I hadn’t seen them live ever so I thought I’d give it a shot. Everyone in the venue seemed to be cool with them as the band itself was not bad and they played various songs from Freak Out! and their latest full-length Tales From Wyoming among other albums but mainly those two, frontman Ray Carlisle kept the energies up with his on stage antics which was cool but again got pretty repetitive after a few songs.

Finishing up that set, the night was pretty late (1 am actually) and the Metro was going to close soon at around 130 am but I decided to quickly run down to Katacombes and check out a bit of the Solids set while I still had a few minutes. Tight band and honestly they’re really good live for a duo, if you ever have a chance to see them live do it, you won’t be disappointed. I saw them last week in Toronto for Canadian Music Week and now in Montreal for Pouzzafest - the few songs I did watch really stood out, especially that late into the night which did surprisingly have a lot of people still watching and hanging out, considering last call was 3 am.

With a couple of minutes to spare I caught the last subway from Saint Laurent back to my hotel and crashed around 2 30, exhausted like hell from the early morning drive and running around and watching all the bands that night but at the same time excited for the next day.