Features

Photo: Colin Medley

“I hope that show becomes my most important memory of 2018,” says Montreal’s Helena Deland with a laugh.  Deland is referring to her headline performance at this year’s edition of M for Montreal, the four-day festival spotlighting rising local talent for industry folk and music fans alike.  The show is the culmination of a whirlwind year of gigs for the singer-songwriter, including a U.S tour in the spring (including a performance at Austin, Texas’ venerable SXSW festival) and European one last month.

Even though ÎleSoniq has “only” three stages, as opposed to six for Osheaga, it was still hard to choose which show to run to, as each stage was far enough from the other to have non-stop music. On Friday, the first show I saw was Klingande. This DJ is known, among other things, for his very successful “Jubel (original mix)” track, which was basically the soundtrack to the summer of 2014. It’s a very dreamy and relaxing track. Klingande kept this soothing style in his set, which did not prepare anyone for what was coming next : Herobust.

I have been waiting for the second edition of ’77 Montreal Festival ever since its successful debut last year, and it did not disappoint. This year, organizers wanted to step up their game with more bands and more stages. There was the Jardin stage, reserved for smaller acts, with very little separation between the fans and the performers, and there was the Ouest stage, which would attract larger crowds and would televise the acts and massive screens on either end. I wanted to see everything, so I found myself running across the festival grounds, often having to leave midway through one set to catch the end of another.

For some reason, they say don’t meet your heroes. Last night, one of my comedic heroes was in Montreal and I wanted to meet him. Tony Hinchcliffe will be the first one to tell you he’s one of the top young rising comedians in the world, and we have to believe him. Being the go-to roast writer, this unapologetic comedian has written on six of the last Comedy Central Roasts as well as writing and performing on All Def Snoop Dogg Smoke Out (Snoop Dogg’s roast). His comedy is like rapid-fire. It’s quick and painful… If you’re on the receiving end of it that is.

We at CJLO are always stoked for Heavy Montreal to come around and rock out in a style befitting Montreal's connection to the loudest, heaviest acts, and this year is no different. To help you to decide what you need to see this year, some of our DJs have compiled a list of bands they're looking forward to seeing. Also, if you have some time in between bands, or if you are sitting at home during the weekend, why not tune into our live broadcast (which we'll be posting times for on our social media accounts) for live interviews with bands and music from this year’s groups and past.

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Montréal's 10th annual ComicCon ended on Sunday after a three-day celebration of geek culture. This being my first Comic-Con, I wasn't really sure of what to expect, but I was still pleasantly surprised. I attended a variety of events, but I'm going to talk about the two I enjoyed the most: BattleCOM and the DreakHacks Gaming Zone.