THE OOOHH BABY GIMME MORES at the Rivoli, Friday, September 12. Rating: NNNN
Friday night’s Ooohh Baby Gimme Mores’ album release party had pretty much everything you could want in a punk show: spirited chants of “O-B-G-Ms” before the band appeared, audience participation antics from song 1, a few tambourines, lots of crowd-surfing (including lead singer/guitarist Densil McFarlane, whilst playing guitar), a male fan twerking onstage, another guy rushing bassist Joe Brosnan and kissing him before diving into the crowd, and so much sweat that drummer Colanthony Humphrey and keys/synths player Jemuel Roberts eventually went shirtless.
All the while, the Toronto four-piece cranked out boisterous dance-punk-meets-garage with enough melody to nod at mid-00s British indie-rock acts like the Arctic Monkeys. Part of that latter sound is thanks to McFarlane’s vocals, which are sufficiently abrasive for the genre, and yet carry real rock-star polish and personality – far more than you’d expect from a band that was mostly unknown before their NXNE show in June, when Budweiser surprised them and announced they’d be sending them to play Jay Z’s Made In America festival (headlined by Kanye West) later that summer.
Bud also funded their debut full-length, whose songs, like Pill, Ijustwannaluvuallthetime and King Stay The King (about Stringer Bell from the Wire!!!), kept the Rivoli crowd moshing for the OBGMs’ hour-ish set.
Sure, the band’s got the beer giant’s corporate power behind them, but they haven’t lost their indie-punk spirit. “Listen to the album,” they urged. “Then pirate the fuck out of it. Pirate that shit!”
Before their encore, the guys were presented with a cake (it was Brosnan and Humphrey’s birthdays, as well as the birthday of their album, they said), which they proceded to throw at the audience and eventually dump out over the fans upfront. Women in heels tried not to slip on the icing as they spilled out of the sold-out venue, while fans posted photos holding hunks of it to Instagram.
