Montreal Concerts, Canadiens & Live Events

Inside Montreal

Montreal does not have an off-season — it just changes coats. The city of 1.78 million in the proper and roughly 4.3 million across the island and the South Shore runs the busiest live calendar in Canada outside of Toronto, and on most nights it is the louder of the two. The downtown core is built around a handful of rooms that anchor everything: the Centre Bell, the largest NHL arena by capacity and the busiest concert building in the country, where the Montreal Canadiens, the Habs, the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge play eighty-plus dates a year and where the biggest world tours stop on their North American runs; the MTELUS on Sainte-Catherine, the mid-size rock room that took over from the Metropolis name; Place des Arts, the largest performing-arts complex in Canada with five halls under one roof; the Olympia just east of the Quartier Latin; and a deep bench of clubs — Corona, Beanfield, Bell Centre Bar a Spectacles, Club Soda — that fill in everything between an arena tour and a basement show. From late June into early August the Quartier des spectacles becomes a stage of its own: the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal puts free outdoor shows steps from the metro, Juste pour rire / Just for Laughs takes over with galas, Les FrancoFolies fill the same blocks with francophone music, Osheaga draws crowds to Parc Jean-Drapeau and the city runs on festival hours. This is a town with a real double market — francophone Quebec and an anglophone scene that thinks of itself as continental more than Canadian — and a Plateau-Mile End nightlife corridor that stays awake long after every other city in the country has gone to bed.

What's happening in Montreal this week

A typical Montreal week pivots around the Centre Bell schedule and the Place des Arts subscription series, then fills in from there. Tuesday and Wednesday belong to the indie rooms — Bar le Ritz PDB in Villeray, Casa del Popolo on Saint-Laurent, La Sotterenea, Petit Campus near McGill — where touring bands on weeknight routes through the Northeast stop between Boston and Toronto. Thursday is the soft start of the weekend: Old Port restaurants get loud, Quartier des spectacles puts on programmed series, and the comedy clubs at the Comedy Nest and Le Bordel fill up with locals before the tourist surge. Friday and Saturday are the heavy lifts — Centre Bell concert dates, Canadiens home games, MLS at Stade Saputo when CF Montreal is in town, Alouettes games at Percival Molson on the McGill campus during football season, and Place des Arts performances across all five of its halls. Sunday is matinee classical, French theatre, neighborhood brunches with live music, and the residency shows at the Diving Bell and other small Mile End rooms. The festival summer compresses everything: from mid-June through mid-August the calendar runs effectively non-stop, with outdoor stages programmed from noon to midnight and a winter slate (Igloofest, Montreal en lumiere, Nuit blanche) that keeps the streets full when the temperature drops.

Things to do in Montreal this weekend

A Montreal weekend has its own grammar. Friday usually starts at five or six on a terrasse — Crescent Street and the McGill ghetto if you are uptown, Saint-Denis or Mont-Royal Avenue if you are on the Plateau, the lanes of Old Montreal if you are downtown — and rolls into a dinner that runs late on purpose, because nothing in this city is in a hurry. The first concert sets at MTELUS, Beanfield Theatre and Club Soda go at eight or nine; the Centre Bell drops puck at seven on Habs nights and pushes the bars on rue de la Montagne and rue Crescent into overdrive by ten. Saturday is the long day: a brunch on Plateau Mont-Royal, an afternoon on the Lachine Canal or at Jean-Talon Market, a walk through Mural Festival territory on Saint-Laurent if it is summer, then a back-half that can run anywhere from a francophone theatre piece at Theatre du Nouveau Monde to an indie show at La Sala Rossa to a 2 a.m. session at one of the after-hours clubs on Saint-Laurent. Sunday is a softer pivot — afternoon matinees at Place des Arts, jazz brunches at Upstairs and Diese Onze, neighborhood walks in Mile End and the Plateau — and an early evening show that lets you start the week without ruining it. Montreal weekends reward people who do not try to schedule them too tightly.

Things to do in Montreal tonight

Montreal has a deserved reputation as the late-night city of Canada, and tonight's options reflect that. On a weeknight, start with the Centre Bell schedule — Habs game, concert, or comedy gala — then check the listings at MTELUS, Beanfield Theatre, Club Soda and Olympia. If the big rooms are dark, the small ones almost never are: Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa on Saint-Laurent program live music six nights a week, Le Ministere and Petit Campus pick up the indie touring traffic, and the jazz rooms (Diese Onze on Saint-Denis, Upstairs on Mackay, House of Jazz downtown) run nightly sets. The comedy scene is unusually strong for a weeknight thanks to the year-round circuit that feeds Just for Laughs: the Comedy Nest, Le Bordel, and English/French open mics at smaller bars keep going Sunday through Thursday. Bars in Quebec stay open until 3 a.m., later than anywhere else in Canada, so a "quick drink" after a show is a real category here, not a polite fiction.

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