Punk Is Uniting Divided Generations/Le punk unit des générations fragmentées

At Pouzza Fest, a local springtime festival, a huge range of people come together from all around the country to show what unity means, and how it can be achieved.

Au Pouzza Fest, un festival local de printemps, un large éventail de personnes se réunissent de tout le pays pour montrer ce que signifie l'unité et comment elle peut être réalisée.

Le français suit ci-dessous

Solids Play at Foufounes Photo by Isaac Peltz

At Pouzza Fest, Punk Unites Fragmented Generations

Every spring, hundreds of punks converge on Montreal to attend Pouzza Fest, a springtime festival in Quebec. For its thirteenth edition, the event once again was wild, fun, passionate, and full of a bunch of unknowns that even the concert attendees didn’t know.

Despite the absence of mainstream headliners, downtown venues hosted emerging artists and fans from across the country for three days. “Punk fans will show up, even if they don’t know the bands,” said Guilhem Bénard, co-founder of Pouzza.

On stage at Club Soda, the singer from the Toronto band The OBGMs addressed the crowd with a message: “I go to therapy every week, and I encourage you all to do the same,” he declared, before launching into a high-energy song. Seconds later, a chaotic mosh pit broke out in front of the stage — shoulder slams, shouting, bodies crashing into each other. A classic scene in the punk (or metal, or any aggressive genre) world, where physical intensity becomes a form of catharsis.

Lead singer of the OBGMs Photo By Isaac Peltz