Sarah Deshaies produces the Andrew Carter Morning Show. Every Friday at 8:20am, she tells you about the big, quirky and off-the-beaten-path events happening in Montreal. Here is this week's list, with links for more information so you can get out and enjoy the city! Submit your event to sarah.deshaies@bellmedia.ca.
If you have plans on Friday, be sure to check in advance to see if your event has been postponed, moved or cancelled in light of the heavy rainfall from Debby!
After Osheaga comes the dance party! ÎleSoniq presents a stacked lineup of electronic music acts at Parc Jean Drapeau, Saturday and Sunday. French producer DJ Snake is Saturday’s big draw, with Dutch DJ Tiësto and Germany’s Paul Kalkbrenner closing out the Sunday program. There are multiple after parties in the city both nights, like the duo Loud Luxury at New City Gas, Sunday 11pm.
Fierté Montréal wraps up this weekend with parties, shows and events celebrating and honouring the city’s LGBTQ2S+ community. And the closing Pride Parade (theme is We are the Rainbow!) starts at René-Lévesque and Metcalfe at 1pm, heading east along the boulevard to Atataken. The moment of silence in honour of victims of AIDS and homophobia in all its forms will be at 2:15 pm. The Mega T-Dance party follows at the Big O. (Rita Baga’s Drag Superstars on Friday has been postponed due to the weather.)
Celebrate the end of the Olympics with athletes and fellow fans at Windsor Station. The inaugural Fan Fest will include live coverage, a breaking battle, music and a chance to meet Paris 2024 Olympians, like gymnast Félix Dolci. Look for our Friday morning guest, Sochi skier (and doctor!) Maxime Dufour Lapointe! Friday to Sunday, at Windsor Station.
Get ready for take off at the International Balloon Festival in St Jean sur Richelieu, where the music is almost as big as a draw as the balloons. Friday’s music lineup has been moved to Monday. Bryan Adams performs with The Sheepdogs on Saturday, with Matt Lang and Les Deuxluxes on Sunday’s lineup. Festival continues until August 18.
Montreal First Peoples Festival presents music, dance and movie screenings by Indigenous groups around the world. See the Moose Town Singers from the Atikamekw Nation of Opitciwan perform traditional drums, at various times at Place des Festivals. DJ Shub will put on a dance party Friday at MTelus. Corey Payette’s 2023 film Les Filles du Roi, about two Kanien’kéha siblings in New France, screens Friday, 6pm at Cinéma du Musée. Until August 15.
The West Island Blues Festival moves to Pine Beach Park in Dorval on Saturday. The Fired Up Band kicks things off at 3pm, with music ongoing until the closing act The Stone Doctors, at 9:30pm.
Pop Montreal’s ongoing summer hotspot Marché des possibles (5705 rue de Gaspé, corner Bernard) hosts Fashion PUP, a sartorial show open to any stylish canine. The theme this year is ‘Sports Illustrated’, and it kicks off Saturday, 2pm. Varied programming throughout the weekend.
The 196th Huntingdon Agricultural Fair presents a petting zoo, rides, demolition derby and more, plus live music like country-rockers Ambush, performing Friday 9pm. Until Sunday.
Double the fun at Island Fête, the Caribbean festival that expands this year to two days of food and music like reggae, soca, and calypso. DJ Blaster, and Waahli headline. Saturday and Sunday, 12-9pm at À-Ma-Baie Park, 9625 Boulevard Gouin Ouest in Pierrefonds.
Final weekend for Italfest, which celebrates the best of Italian culture throughout the city! Thunder Bay-based folk dance group Le Stelle Alpine Italian Dance perform Friday, 6pm and Saturday 6:15pm at the Quartier des spectacles. Powerful WWII documentary Le Ciociare will screen Friday, 6:30pm at the Centre Leonardo Da Vinci.
Dreamy singer-songwriter Patrick Watson performs “Under the Stars during the Perseids” at the Fernand-Lindsay amphitheatre. It’s his first time putting on a show at the outdoor venue in Joliette. Friday and Saturday, 7:30pm. (Some tickets on Friday will be honoured on Saturday.)
Luc Plamondon’s cyberpunk rock opera Starmania: L’Opéra Rock first debuted in 1979, launching the career of Diane Dufresne. Futuristic city Monopolis is the setting for several love stories, as well as the symbolic battle between terrorist rebels and a cruel totalitarianism. Johnny Rockfort, leader of the Black Star gang, falls for celebrity TV host Cristal. Until August 18 at Place Bell in Laval.
The 20th anniversary performance of French-language musical Don Juan has returned home! Gian Marco Schiaretti stars as the libidinous seducer out for love and adventure. Until August 24 at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.
Pub Royal is an intimate circus show inspired by the music of legendary neotrad rock band Les Cowboys Fringants. This production by Les 7 Doigts de la main is back on at until August 17 at Théâtre Maisonneuve.
Film Noir sur le Canal screens Bob le flambeur, a 1956 French heist film about an ageing gambler planning his next move after a big loss. Serge Turgeon is the founder and artistic director of the fiml series, and he will introduce the movie at 7:45, before the movie rolls roughly at 8:30pm). Sunday at Square Saint-Patrick along the Lachine Canal.
It’s Festival Faves weekend at The Comedy Nest, with nine comics cycling through a 90-minute set. Catch Gino Durante, Hadi Kubba, Elspeth Wright and more! Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room, owner Frenchy Jones hosts two soirees: Pride is the theme on Friday at 9pm with A Celebration of LGBTQ Performers. Rosie Bourgeoisie, Tristan Ginger, Quinzy Chase and Olivia Killjoy are on the bill. Saturday, 9pm is Punk Rock Burlesque, with Lou Lou la Duchesse de Rière, Sugar Vixen, Moonshine Sunshine and Zyra Lee Vanity. Then on Sunday, 7:30pm: The Lucy Show, a LGBTQ comedy-burlesque show.
ONGOING EVENTS
Massive, summer-long ceramics event 1001 Pots continues this weekend! Browse a selection of works by ceramicists across the province, and check out art installations and demonstration. The Potters' Olympics competition takes place Saturday. At 2435 de l'Église in Val-David in the Laurentians, on weekends until August 18.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’s latest show Saints, Sinners and Fools, a massive exhibit tracing three centuries of Flemish masterworks, including pieces by Rubens and van Dyck. You can also check out an exhibit on pop art and Japanese artist Hiroshige’s landscapes.
The McCord-Stewart Museum would also provide respite from the rainy weather: check out two new photography shows: a retrospective of the work of inventive, playful celebrity photo Norman Parkinson and Portraits and Fashion, a collection of iconic images captured by Quebec fashion photographers like Norman Jean Roy and Andréanne Gauthier.
Normand Brathwaite’s New Orleans Blues is a live concert in homage to the Crescent City’s famously musical French Quarter, anchored by immersive projections and a Cajun menu designed by Chef Paul Toussaint. Until September 1 at the Studio-Cabaret at Espace St Denis.
Cirque du soleil’s steampunk extravaganza Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities is back! Step into the Seeker’s wondrous, funny world, filled with contortionists and acrobats! Kurios is at the Big Top in Old Montreal until August 25.
Take a walk downtown to look out for 15 giant pink sculptures! Le Mignonisme is a series of sculptures known as Monsieur Rose, from the mind of artist Philippe Katerine. You’ll find them along an art walk downtown, including the Quartier des Spectacles and Place des Arts to the Esplanade PVM at Place Ville Marie and Phillips Square. Until September 29.
At the Botanical Gardens, look for the coneflowers and black-eyed-susans, while the lilies are at the end of their blooms. Check out the other blooms of the week here. And check out Telling Our Story - The Territory, a photo and sound exhibit profiling the province’s 11 Indigenous communities at the First Nations Garden.
Nearby, the Montreal Planetarium’s new show imagines what human life could like on Mars.. in 2100! With help from NASA aerospace engineer Farah Alibay and celebrated troupe Cirque Éloize, ROUGE 2100 explores the environment of the red planet as well as what astronauts would need to survive. You’ll have the A-I bot Felicity 87, to take you through the immersive exhibit.
Pointe-À-Callière Museum has launched a first-in-Canada show, Olmecs and the Civilizations of the Gulf of Mexico Explore 4,000 years of Olmec history through nearly 300 objects, some of which will be seen for the first time by the public. What’s fascinating is that traces of the Olmecs were not really “discovered” until the 1800s. This show, a collaboration with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, runs until September 15.
Explore the beauty and diversity of our natural world in Root for Nature. This new, 90-minute show is a “nature hike” indoors, conceived as a powerful piece of edutainment inspired by the COP15 biodiversity talks hosted by Montreal in late 2022. This collaboration between National Geographic and OASIS Immersive Studios will take place in the same location as the UN conference, at the Palais des congrès. Also at the venue: Dreaming of Asia is a stunning exploration of Chinese and Japanese culture, making its North American premiere at OASIS Immersions. French digital art studio Danny Rose has crafted four different experiences, including a look at shadow puppet theatre.
Visit the city’s newest museum: Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises promises to capture the metropois’ history and citizens. Check out the vintage neon signs at the entrance, and look for the colourful balls that once decorated Ste-Catherine in the Gay Village. There are two exhibitions up now: a lookback at the 90 years of Le Chaînon, the women’s shelter and resource centre, and Détours, which focuses on hidden corners of the city. Located at 1201 St Laurent.