Toronto's The OBGMs
Toronto punk-rock firestarters The OBGMs don’t just play songs—they bend crowds like blacksmiths shaping steel. From the moment they landed, vocalist Denz McFarlane was running the room like a drill sergeant of joy: forcing hands in the air, splitting the audience down the middle, demanding movement from side to side until everyone obeyed.
But this wasn’t control for control’s sake—it was family-building, punctuated with the recited commandments of punk rock: if someone falls, you pick them up, if someone needs space, you give them room, look to your sides—this is your family tonight. It was tear-jerking, hilarious, and strangely spiritual all at once.
Between eating a fly mid-monologue about heartbreak, calling all the women to the front to clear space for everyone, and hopping into the crowd for a “sad or sad-sad” singalong, McFarlane proved himself a master of crowd sorcery. A mild mosh pit bloomed, the floor briefly turned into a seated congregation, and even a few new crowdsurfers were born that night. It wasn’t just a show—it was a communal lesson in punk as a practice of radical togetherness.
