Autumn will make you fall in love with music in Montréal

Autumn is always a fertile time for music in Montréal ­ international calibre creators like The Kills, Adele, Maroon 5, Charles Aznavour, Simple Plan and more ­ and this year is proving no exception. Let the following be your guide to getting and giving some live music love in the cooling coming months.

Heralding the arrival of the fall, fans of punk’n’roll have their work cut out for them on September 21. Naples, Florida nu-skool punks Against Me! will be playing tunes off their just-released seventh album, Shape Shift with Me, at Club Soda, while achingly cool post-punk indie rockers The Kills will be slinging songs off their fifth and latest, Ash Ice, at Metropolis as part of the many-spectacled Pop Montreal (Sept. 21-25). And for the old school punks among us? Pioneering canuck skate-punk band SNFU will raze the stage at Petit Campus.

It’s the 15-year anniversary of the release of Maroon 5‘s landmark Songs About Jane debut album, and as the L.A.-based pop phenomenon embarks on their only North American tour of 2016, they’re promising “to make a more traditional record next… like the way we made Songs About Jane.” Expect to hear some of the fruits of that labour at the Bell Centre, September 23. (*Please note that the Maroon 5 concert has now been rescheduled to February 24, 2017.) On the same night, albeit on another side of the music spectrum, Haifa psytrance super-duo Infected Mushroom (one of the best-selling music groups in Israeli history) will  enthrall electro fans at Metropolis.

She doesn’t need any introduction. Suffice it to say that Adele, who has now sold a total of more than 100 million albums worldwide (aided in large part by her record-breaking third album last year, 25), will once again say Hello to adoring Montréal fans at the Bell Centre, September 30.

Still kickin’ it five decades on, blue-eyed soul soft rockers The Doobie Brothers will make several generations of concertgoers swoon when they headline the Bell Centre, October 8. Expect a different kind of doobies to be in evidence when, that same night, Australian rock’n’roll crazy people Airbourne bring their next generation AC/DC onslaught to the Corona Theatre.

If you’re going to see the most successful classical crossover vocal group in the history of music, as the Guinness Book of World Records calls them, then you might as well see them in one of the most prestigious performance spaces in the country. Which is to say U.K. singing sensations Il Divo will grace the stage at Montréal’s Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts, October 10.

Putting the “pun” in “punk,” Canada’s own Sum 41 are preparing to launch their “Don’t Call It a Sum-Back Tour” comeback tour after a five-year recording hiatus. They’ll be performing songs off their sixth studio album, 13 Voices, on October 17 at Metropolis.

His singing career spans eight decades, he’s written and recorded over 1,200 songs in eight languages, and he’s sold over 180 million records. He is, of course, Charles Aznavour. Once named by CNN as the Entertainer of the Century, the “French Frank Sinatra” will wow concertgoers with classics like La Bohème and Yesterday, When I Was Young at the Bell Centre, October 21.

And while they haven’t been playing for eight decades, they most certainly have eight decades between them. The musical past comes roaring back to life with a classic ’70s rock double-header when multi-platinum artists Earth, Wind Fire and Chicago bring their “Heart and Soul Tour 3.0” to the Bell Centre, October 28. Not to be outdone, the ’80s will relive some of their own glory days that night when Toronto glam/new wave heartthrobs Platinum Blonde rock L’Astral.

Extreme metal enthusiasts, and there are many in Montréal, are in for some special Halloween tricks and treats this year: Swedish death/thrash/prog metal mayhem makers Meshuggah will lay down tracks from their forthcoming album, The Violent Sleep of Reason, at Metropolis on October 31. Too scary, even for Halloween? California indie-pop outfit Grouplove will be catering to gentler bents across town at the Corona Theatre.

And now for something completely different. Anyone who’s ever watched director Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou will be familiar with the film’s renditions of David Bowie tunes Rebel Rebel, Rock Roll Suicide, Life on Mars and more by L.A.-based Brazilian pop samba star Seu Jorge. Well now Jorge is taking “The Life Aquatic: A Tribute to David Bowie” on tour. The show will feature stage sets designed to look like scenes from the film, and takes place at Théàtre Maisoneuve, Place des Arts, November 14.

Canadian pop punk superstars Simple Plan will head out on yet another cross-country arena tour in support of their fifth studio album, Taking One for the Team. Recently named by Alternative Press as one of the 10 most influential bands in pop punk, Simple Plan will help you Get Your Heart On! at the Bell Centre, November 23.

And the only thing Montrealers like almost as much as classic British prog-rockers Genesis is French Canadian Genesis tribute band The Musical Box. It’s a weird world out there. The enormously popular Musical Box will once again bedazzle Bell Centre concertgoers with their elaborate stage presentation.

Up next:Your 2016 POP Montréal survival guide