“Gotta say, you look a little worse for wear,” the border patrol agent said, an accusatory tone I knew all too well creeping into his voice. “Good time tonight?”
I hastily glanced in my rearview mirror, taking stock. My hair was wild after an hour of driving through Canadian farmland with the windows down. Clad in a denim jacket (when in Rome, right?) and a black TEKE::TEKE shirt with a not-unsubstantial amount of crumbs from the burger I stuffed down my gullet on my way back to America, I wasn’t exactly at my most presentable. I’d taken off my press badge, but I still had the POP Montréal wristband on, as well as about five different ink stamps on either hand.
“I, uh, I went to POP?” I replied with the desperation of a bad character actor in a cop show who’s asked for his alibi.
“POP Montréal,” I repeated, as if the name of the music and arts festival was what the man in the bulletproof vest wanted from me.
Surprisingly, he flashed a grin. “I have no idea what that is,” he said.
It being almost 1 a.m., his smile unnerved me. Was it genuine, or did he smell blood in the water? I’d had my vehicle searched at the border before (always on the American side), and it wasn’t an experience I wanted to go through again. The extra hours it would keep me from my warm bed felt like an impending prison sentence, so I started to blurt out what I’d been doing in Montréal. Unfortunately, it started thusly:
“OK, what you have to understand first is that POP isn’t like any other music festival, right? There’s, like, so, so much going on. I honestly don’t know where to start, man. Music, comedy, dogs. There’s a film fest part of it, but I didn’t catch any of those. I also ate a lot, but that doesn’t matter — why am I bringing that up? You don’t care, right? I got interviewed a few times, but I doubt they’ll use it because my French absolutely sucks. Do you have to know French?”
His expression didn’t change, but in my mind I was signing myself up for a body cavity search.
So I just started gushing. I told the officer that I’ve only been going to POP Montréal for a few years, but it’s been going strong for 24 years as one of the coolest, most indie music fests in North America. I added that every time I go, I come back with a bunch of new artists to obsess over.
I regaled him with a breathless account of catching Thanya Iyer at La Sala Rossa. A Montréal singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Iyer and the band dropped a set of future folk, a diaphanous, ethereal sound that could turn earthy and tangible at any moment, complete with swirling synths, harp, horns and tittering, almost free-jazz beats.
“It reminded me a little of when old sci-fi shows would try to guess what music in the 25th century would sound like, only I think Thanya is what that music would actually sound like. Does that make sense?” I asked the officer.
His only reply was a slight raising of his eyebrows. I pushed on, trying to build some momentum.
I told him of the legend of Michel Pagliaro, the now 76-year-old rocker who charted in England in the ’70s with tunes such as “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy” and whose hit song in Québec, “J’entends frapper,” was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. At his packed show at Théâtre Rialto, with a long mane of white hair and a bushy beard, clad all in black with a Telecaster hung over his shoulder, Pagliaro was the picture of the stately rock star, sounding to my American ears like a cross between John Fogerty and Elvis Costello.
I thought about explaining my T-shirt, which (under the aforementioned crumbs) proudly bore the name of TEKE::TEKE, a Japanese Canadian psychedelic, surf-garage-experimental outfit that performed at the fest alongside Toronto electronica act Holy Fuck. But one thing you learn as a music writer is that when you start listing off all the cool-as-hell bands you know that someone else doesn’t know, it only takes a name or two and the word “experimental” before that person’s eyes glaze over. I wasn’t even going to try to explain Palestinian hip-hop outfit DAM.
So I went off about all the other amazing facets of POP, even though I’d only been able to catch a sliver of the awesomeness. I gushed about the rooftop concerts spread throughout the Mile End neighborhood, from the Rialto to the Ubisoft building, and the magic of an early autumn view of the cityscape.
“I couldn’t make everything, of course, but there’s Art POP, film screenings,” I continued, curious if I sounded as rambling as I felt. The border cop remained impassive.
“There’s fashion shows, too. It’s a dog fashion show, actually.”
“A dog fashion show?” he responded, smirking.
“At Entrepôt 77! Ever been?” I asked, feeling immediately dumb. “It’s incredible. Also, have you heard of Do Make Say Think? Toronto indie band with two drummers. Two drummers is the way to go—”
The border agent raised his hand to politely let me know he got the gist. He handed my passport back, and I snapped out of my fatigue-induced internal dialogue.
“Welcome back,” he said. “Have a good night.”
Keep POP-ing
POP Montréal might be over, but the City of Lights has a ton of other festivals coming up. Here are some highlights:
Festival SPASM has been going strong since 2002 and features the best in scary, spooky, sexy and just plain weird short films. Running October 22 through November 1, it’s an ideal Halloween getaway. Check it out at spasm.ca.
If POP whetted your appetite for a killer music fest featuring some of the biggest and up-and-coming acts from Canada and elsewhere, try the mammoth M for Montréal, which celebrates its 20th anniversary from November 19 through 22. Highlights include Digable Planets, the Besnard Lakes and BADBADNOTGOOD. For details, visit mpourmontreal.com.
Too highbrow for horror movies and rock and roll? Don’t sweat it. Festival International Bach Montréal touts itself as the premier North American celebration of classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach. From November 15 through December 7, the sprawling event features 30-plus concerts at dozens of venues across the city. Learn more at festivalbachmontreal.com.
This article is part of a travel series on Québec. The province’s destination marketing organization, Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, under the Bonjour Québec brand, is a financial underwriter of the project but has no influence over story selection or content. Find the complete series plus travel tips at sevendaysvt.com/quebec.
This article appears in Oct 1-7 2025.
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