2015 guide to Montréal summer music festivals

It’s beginning to sound a lot like summer in Montréal, as evidenced by the almost paralyzing array of music festival options – Osheaga, the Jazz Fest, Piknic Electronik, MUTEK and Heavy Montréal among them – featuring failsafe mainstays and some righteously exciting newbies.

Getting wired and being plugged-in don’t always mean the same thing, but you can certainly do both in style at digital arts festival Elektra. From May 13 to 17, Elektra showcases new creations in electronic music, video, cinema, performance, gaming and more, in combination with the inventive use of next-level digital technologies. Conversely, bringing music fun back to the basics is the annual Pouzza Fest of all things punk rock, May 15-17. Steadily making a bigger and badder name for itself over the last five years, Pouzza returns with over 200 punk bands that span generations of punk fans, including 80s punks the Dwarves, Chicago hardcore unit 88 Fingers Louie, and L.A. pop punks The Muffs.

Summer is synonymous with picnics, and summer in Montréal has become synonymous with Piknic Electronik, the wildly popular weekly outdoor electronic music dance party. Typically held in Parc Jean-Drapeau (on Île Ste-Hélène, across from Montréal’s Old Port), this year’s Piknic Electronik series, which runs every weekend until Sept. 20, drops the beat with a doubleheader season opener on May 17 and 18. And if that’s not enough to get the ’ole synapses firing on all cylinders, the city’s internationally renowned MUTEK festival – over 150 multi-sensory events and adventures celebrating innovative electronic music, digital creativity, technology and live performance – will blow what’s left of your mind from May 27 to 31.

Speaking of living life on the edge, it doesn’t get more musically adventurous than the annual three-week Suoni Per Il Popolo festival, June 4-22. The now 15-year-old brainchild (brainteen?) of the founders of leading indie music scene venues Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa, Suoni Per Il Popolo presents approximately 50 concerts featuring an eclectic range of experimental and avant-garde music and sound (think free jazz, musique actuelle, avant-rock, noise, etc.) that pushes boundaries into places where no boundaries should ever be. Operating under the very a propos motto “It’s classical… it’s cool,” the Montreal Chamber Music Festival (June 6-21) turns a very respectable 20 years old this year. From humble beginnings (the first concert, in 1995, was performed in the chalet atop Mount Royal) the much-expanded fest featuring several differently themed series now occupies many of the top concert halls in the city, including Place des Arts.

When the Montreal Folk Festival on the Canal was born in 2008, it was a one-day event that drew approximately 500 folk faithful. The event was such a hit – it’s picturesque park placement alongside Montréal’s historic Lachine Canal certainly didn’t hurt any – that it now draws close to 10,000 for five days of folk, roots and bluegrass featuring both emerging artists and folk royalty. This year’s fest takes place June 17-21.

It’s also the time for some of Montréal’s biggest music fest hitters to take their turn at bat, beginning with Les Francofolies de Montréal, which will be knocking French songs out of the linguistic park from June 11 to 20 downtown at the Quartier des Spectacles. With close to 70 indoor and 180 free outdoor shows featuring a magnifique selection of local and international francophone artists, the Francos are your passport to the wide world of French pop, rock, blues, jazz and more. Less than a week later, the Francos’ big sister steps up to the plate. The Montréal International Jazz Festival, from June 26 to July 5, needs little introduction, but heck, we’ll do it anyway: the planet’s greatest, grandest jazz fest turns 36 this year with hundreds of concerts representing numerous genres including some 300 free outdoor shows that inundate downtown Montréal with a flood of music-loving merriment.

If the big city scene isn’t necessarily to your summertime tastes, treat yourself to a scenic, 45-minute drive to St-André-d’Argenteuil. The town’s historic Carillon Park will play host to a brand beatin’ new electronic music fest with the catchy acronym AIM (i.e., “Art Innovation Movement”) from June 26 to 28. Promising an immersive experience for all electronic music fans in the shadow of the massive, monolithic monuments marking the location of the Battle of Long Sault, the AIM Festival offers a literal breath of fresh air when it comes to the electro-fest experience. Some 50 top-tier EDM artists are on tap for the non-stop, 32-hour dance party, and camping onsite is encouraged.

Occupying roughly the same time slot, though not the same brain space, is the 13th edition of the Montréal Baroque Festival, June 25-28, taking place at McGill University downtown. In their own words: “Earth to ether, alcohol to flames, tobacco to smoke and terrestrial to celestial; transformations will inspire the 2015 Montreal Baroque Festival!” If the imaginative titles of the many concerts are any indication – In Bach’s Orbit, Vivaldi and the Gypsies, and The Angelic Virgin, for example – this will be an inspired affair indeed. From moving music to moving to the music, the International Percussion Festival turns 14 down in Old Montréal and the Old Port from July 3-12. A participative event (spectators are encouraged to get in on the playing and dancing action), the festival is also multidisciplinary, uniting music, dance, visual arts, film, food, workshops and conferences in the company of over 500 artists.

The summer heat will begin to peak with Montréal’s vibrant and lively Nuits D’Afrique world music festival, July 7-19. Boasting the best of African and African-influenced music from some of the biggest names in the game at numerous indoor and free outdoor shows, Nuits D’Afrique is a guaranteed font of dancey, sweaty, festy fun. The same could be said for MEG Montréal (a.k.a., Montréal Electronic Groove), the 17th edition of which runs from July 23 to Aug. 2. As much groove as it is electronic, MEG provides a forum for both established and up-and-coming indie, hip-hop, world and electronic artists to showcase new music. And their annual MEG Boat St. Lawrence River cruise parties are a highlight of the dance calendar year.

Meanwhile, back on terra firma, the Présence Autochtone Montréal First Peoples Festival celebrates a major milestone with its 25^th edition, July 29-Aug. 5. Theirs is an expansive programme of outdoor concerts (hip-hop to rock to Inuit throat singing to you name it), aboriginal video and film (a veritable international film fest unto itself), outdoor street theatre, native art and a variety of other events and entertainment all taking place in and around the Quartier des Spectacles.

Which brings us to the one and only Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (July 31 to Aug. 2), which has been winning hearts and minds for exactly 10 years this year. Osheaga offers an incomparable outdoor festival experience that takes place in the aforementioned awesomeness of Parc Jean-Drapeau. This year’s special 10^th anniversary edition promises the best in rock, pop, indie, hip-hop and more, courtesy of headliners like Florence and the Machine, Weezer and Kendrick Lamar. Having so much fun you can’t bring yourself to leave Parc Jean-Drapeau? Then don’t. Six anticipation-laden days later, Heavy Montréal blasts big chunks of hard rock, Aug. 7-9. Death metal, hair metal, black metal, hard rock and hardcore are all on the agenda, and this year’s line-up is sick with the likes of Slipknot, Faith No More, Korn, Iggy Pop and NOFX, to name a few.

If the winter blues bring you down, the summer blues have been known to have quite the opposite effect at Festiblues International de Montréal, Aug. 6-9. Taking place in the rolling and tree-lined Parc Ahuntsic, the fest (which turns a very grown-up 18 this year) attracts thousands upon thousands for top-flight blues from more than 50 national and international artists. Then it’s back to Île Ste-Hélène where Parc Jean-Drapeau is again at the center of the action Aug. 14-15 for the second edition of new electronic dance and urban music festival ÎleSoniq, which in only its first year brought out nearly 35,000 beat-happy partiers. Spectacular, state-of-the-art special effects will overload your circuits to the sounds of Deadmau5, Die Antwoord, Azealia Banks and many, many more.

Montreal makes its own chilled-out island vibe at the Montreal International Reggae Festival (August 15-17), adding the best in new and traditional reggae music to late-summer’s hot, sunny days. And if you feel inclined to close out your summer on a heavier note, the Obscene Extreme Festival World Tour is at your service, hunkering down in Montréal for the first time from Aug. 20 to 23. In their own words: “Get your gore grind banana suit ready, put on your gas mask and your most comfortable stage diving costume and get psyched for a wide selection of… grindcore, crust, punk, death, thrash, hardcore and everything in between.” And if you don’t know what that means exactly, rest assured that bands with names like Biological Monstrosity, Schirenc Plays Pungent Stench and Putrescence will be more than happy to explain it to you.

At one of the other ends of the sonic spectrum (there are many) is the Montréal Country Festival, celebrating its second year of existence Aug. 21-23. Taking place this year in the newly opened Jardins Gamelin (Gamelin Gardens) in Place Émilie-Gamelin in the Quartier des Spectacles – which features a beer garden, a resto area and a stage – this showcase of Quebec country/folk artists is also free to all comers. And it bears mentioning again: a beer garden.

Once again this year the OUMF Festival of Emerging Art will be putting the “art” in “party” when they close off St. Denis Street in Montréal’s Latin Quarter for a three-day block party, Sept. 10-12. Expect live bands and cutting edge street theatre, dance, improv, film, installations and all kinds of other avant-garde good times. And closing out the summer festival fun (before the fall and winter fest fun begins) every year is the Pop Montréal International Music Festival, which is rockin’ year 14 from Sept. 16-20. From the eclectic to the eccentric to the simply excellent, Pop is an A-Z independent music lover’s dream which annually attracts some 600 artists and 50,000 of those dreamers for five days of concerts, symposiums, art exhibitions, fashion shows, film screenings and their legendary all-night parties.