Friday
Osheaga is always a destination and a journey. Just like life, you can plan your plans, but they will change. You can park yourself in one spot and have whatever comes to you come, or you can go out in search of adventure.
If you choose your own adventure, you will have new favourites. There will be seized opportunities; there will be heroes born and villains created. It’s a risk.
TALLANDSKIINNY was the first casualty of what is referred to as Event Brain in my apartment. Be early and have your miscellaneous needs taken care of so you can get all the juice out of the orange.
And oh no! Wunderhorse dropped out of the festival. I was excited to see them! Plans already out the window—what would be the first act I would get to enjoy then?
Group Project reaped the benefits of jumping to a much bigger stage. I had planned on enjoying a little Group Project en route to other things, but the smiles on their faces proved to us their game had levelled up. Congratulations all!
The Struts wasted no time rocking us up. I saw them a few months back with Queens of the Stone Age and was eager to enjoy their fun brand of glam rock again.
The festival-goer beside me asked how many songs they usually do, and I advised him he had probably five left and they would sound the same, so if he liked what he’d heard so far, he was going to like the rest of the set. Pretty sure he stayed for the whole thing. It was the hottest part of the afternoon so far.
Joey Valence & Brae are like the Naked Gun reboot for music. You heard them in the nineties, but they are back with an all-new cast and a script that is the most intelligently executed dumbness we will witness in 2025.
We are all the, direct quote: “baddest bitches in the club” on Friday afternoon thanks to the varied and well-chosen samples and the cutting, layered jock jams hiding wicked intellects. The audacity of being so smart and having so much fun. Shame on them, the envious fuddy-duddy in me says with a smirk and a side-eye.
The crowd knew the songs, knew the story, and it was full of energy—a swirling testosterone-estrogen melting pot. I was so far away from the mosh pit I almost didn’t believe it existed! But through the magic of technology, the giant screens zoom in and out of a scary vortex of giddy LETSGOOO!!
Next time JVB comes around Montreal, they will have zero problems filling whatever venue they choose and filling it with silly abandon.
As soon as JVB finish, Ekkstacy of Vancouver stormed the stage. Their opener, I assumed, was called “Check Check” had some sound quality issues.
Turns out sound quality issues are kind of their sound. Sprinkle in some Japandroids-style punk and some Bloc Party atmospherics and you’ve got a pretty good sense.
Occasionally, songs would poke out of the noise, and they were pretty awesome. The singer had a very mellow whine to his mumble-singing that really shared a feeling.
JVB leaving had really thinned the audience out, but Ekkstacy managed to lose a cluster per song break and gain three back during the songs. It was in a very gradual way that the crowd size grew and Ekkstacy people found them.
Back at the main stages, I was able to catch Finneas and Lucy Dacus.
You know you’re on top of the music world when you draw a whole festival to your stage with mid-tempo bangers. And Finneas has more than enough if the singalongs in the audience tell the truth.
Finneas is like your most “put-together” friend. Just super reliable, no seething underbelly ready to snap, no ulterior motive, just supportive, and steady and calm. Like your goal person, a quality guy you wish you were more like, but he can’t tell you how to be more like him, because he thinks you’re great the way you are and tells you not to worry about it. So frustrating.
And you can only be happy for his solo success. His songs are so good, the “Little Mess You Made” collaboration with Ashe is probably a song that will grow slowly until it’s one of those tunes that lives forever.
Lucy Dacus follows Finneas and thank goodness, I didn’t want the mellow to end yet. The heat could easily get to you, but the ebb and flow of her set was the perfect air conditioning.
It maybe didn’t last long enough…
Dominic Fike’s set is reminding me that AI slop is coming for us all. His backdrop screen looks like a lo-fi YouTube channel background, and he seems half engaged, half disinterested.
As I made my way through the packed crowd to recycle my can, I noticed some people actually mocking him and his demeanour. Arms folded and scoffing. And they made some good points. Dominic isn’t very self-aware.
But of course, other people were here for it. Our rock stars need a little bit of self-absorbed detachment if they aren’t going to have a messiah complex.
Great artists divide. He’s pretty great. He also kind of has a bad attitude. So there’s a lot of cheering. And a lot of arms folded.
I do really like that they have high, high, high-quality cameras strewn around the stage and overhead of the drum kit, and they cut to them randomly. It seems like an old-school MTV approach.
Maybe it seems like I don’t enjoy Dominic Fike. That is untrue—I like him a lot. But I’m tired of it. Maybe the mosquito sound effect in the songs isn’t the problem, maybe it’s that his set length is outlasting our ability to handle his personality while also enjoying his songs.
Enter PyPy and their street-art rage. The singer’s General Midi shirt is not the least reason I’ve ever fallen in love. We will have a baby, and it will grow up and say its influences were Iggy Pop and Franz Ferdinand. Imagine the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Pixies made a record produced by LCD Soundsystem and then mastered in a trash can.
Dominic Fike would lose to this singer in a prison yard battle. You can just tell. I still like Dominic. I’ve just made a new friend and we like to gossip.
Every one of the couple hundred of us is taking video of her in the pit. That’s my buddy—the coolest ever. I will learn their names. (Annie-Claude Deschênes, as it turns out.)
If you want the most out of a festival, go to the smaller stages, ok? The crowd grows larger and larger. People HAVE to see this!
Annie-Claude’s in the crowd, she’s on the floor, everyone’s on the floor. She’s gone! I can’t keep writing about it. Every time I think I’m out, she pulls me back in!
So far, my Osheaga journey has had me miss two artists I had hoped to see, but somehow I saw three I didn’t think I’d get to, including Jorja Smith. Jorja has the most crispy, simmering R&B 90s summer jams around and I love the UK garage influences.
The sun goes down and day one is getting to the biggest names of the night.
The Killers’ walk-on song choices were Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning,” Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On,” and local gods Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance.” Make of these cringeworthy picks what you will.
I’m not actually reviewing The Killers today because our photographer (who has no equal in the city) is not allowed to take any pictures (no photographers at all allowed except for their own guy – ed). What’s the point of that? Is this the period of The Killers when they can’t risk showing off the work they’ve had done? Anyway, I’m sure they played all the songs you remember from wedding receptions ten years ago.
In the festival journey, just like in life, people and things let you down. You adjust.
So my night will end with Doechii instead. Honestly, as it probably should have! She’s an ascendant artist.
From the moment she steps on stage, she owns the place. She must have an oxygen tank on the side stage because she’s rapping and singing and so incredibly choreographed, she’s taking our breath away. (Wocka wocka wocka and wink wink emoji, ladies and gentlemen.)
Doechii is not my favourite artist of this day, but lord, I respect the energy. It reminds me that I’ve been running around dancing and interacting all day. Good for me!
The stage floor is by far the coolest I’ve seen. It looks like astroturf on steroids. All flowing grass and texture, yet it’s plastic to survive touring and probably a metaphor for the way we surround our lives with pretty things that mimic nature. I don’t know, that’s reading a lot into maybe a simple style choice. But as part of the whole experience, it makes you feel something.
This is also the best dancing audience of the day, hands down—but to be truthful, my feet hurt. I’m spent. I can’t even hold out long enough to hear that song that reminds me of somebody that I used to know. Like the journey of life, my journey at Osheaga leaves others behind still dancing. Still dealing with their emotions, their anxieties and receiving power from the music.
Don’t grieve for me. I had an amazing time. May you have another amazing journey Day 2 of Osheaga 2025.
Playlist Summary:
Here are ten songs I added to my playlist based on Day 1 of Osheaga 2025:
- Dominic Fike – “How Much is Weed”
- PyPy – “New York”
- Ekkstacy – “Forever”
- Finneas – “Til Forever Falls Apart” (with Ashe)
- Jorja Smith – “With You”
- Lucy Dacus – “Ankles”
- Doechii – “Anxiety”
- Joey Valence & Brae – “OK”
- Group Project – “Pretty House”
- The Struts – “Primadonna”
Mike Rogers
Saturday
Already by Day 2 of Osheaga, it’s becoming clear exactly how powerful social media—and TikTok in particular—has become in drawing enormous crowds to brand new artists early in the day. Even Alex Warren seems shocked at the turnout.
“We’ve only been doing this seven months!” he exclaims, by way of reality check. His sound is a mellow way to start my day, seemingly as well suited to Lasso as it is to Osheaga, the bluegrass intro to “Bloodline” being a perfect case in point. “Chasing Shadows” and “Carry You Home” sound like bona fide stadium anthems already, the singalong on the latter reaching all the way to the back where I am—though that’s nothing compared to set closer “Ordinary,” which sees hundreds of phones take to the sky to record one of a billion videos that are probably filmed over the course of the weekend.
Alex is a funny guy too, joking about “the randomly placed smoke making me feel like Calvin Harris” at one point, and also clarifying that the water cannon that unnecessarily unloads onto the crowd during a typically mellow point of the set “came outta nowhere, that wasn’t my call!” All in all, a great Montreal debut.
After blasting off to the smaller Forest and Valley stages on the other side of the site, Naomi Sharon provides a soulful soundtrack to my poutine and matches the ambiance of this part of the day wonderfully—so much more relaxed than the chaos and overcrowding of the main stages. For now, at least…
My favourite run of bands of the whole weekend begins with Chicago’s Whitney, who factually announce, “We’re Whitney and we’re gonna play for 45 minutes!” Their first visit in six years starts with the mellow “Valleys (My Love)” and “Golden Days” matching this perfect weather. Drummer/singer Julien Ehrlich is in confident mood: “I just had my beard trimmed. I feel like we’re on top form!”
After the bluegrass of “Friend of Mine,” Julien gives us a tip-off for the chorus lyric of new song “Back to the Wind,” which we are more than happy to assist with when the time comes.
One guy in the crowd is getting particularly into it. Julien introduces “Won’t You Speak Your Mind?” as “a toe-tapper, if you feel it…”
“I FEEL IT!” yells the guy back, before the song even starts.
Introducing “The Falls” as “a song about getting drunk,” the guy yells, “LETS GO!” Julien does a playful impression by way of appreciation. “No Woman” is a triumphant close to 45 minutes that pass by all too fast.
As the last bars fade away, the mighty Future Islands appear on the stage right beside, and I bolt across there to continue the party. “King of Sweden” is some way to start the set, frontman Samuel T. Herring patrolling the stage menacingly with the most expressive face you will ever see front a band. He is absolutely mesmerizing.
“The Tower” follows, and the bangers keep coming in the form of “A Dream of You and Me,” Sam busting out a Russian dance with arms folded, and then “Plastic Beach,” where Sam attempts to pull off his face on various occasions.
All the while, bassist William Cashion and drummer Michael Lowry hold down the song with absolutely deadpan, straight faces, clearly immune to Sam’s antics at this point.
My only disappointment with the set is the reaction of the crowd. I really expected it to go nuts for such a dance-driven sound. Even breakthrough song “Seasons (Waiting on You)” sees just a handful of people bouncing around (myself included, obviously), and it’s a big contrast to the club shows in which I’ve seen them.
Oh well—part and parcel for a festival, I guess. The set wraps up with a belly slide from Sam and an attempt to eat his hand on “Long Flight,” and it’s another 45 minutes that absolutely whistle by.
But again, there’s no time to soak it in. It’s the long-awaited return of TV on the Radio on the stage right beside, starting immediately after. What an insane run this is!
Again, I charge through to the floor as the band construct the massive “Young Liars” to start the set. Frontman Tunde Adebimpe is a huge presence, face contorting as he growls, “Take my picture, soon all I will be is my disease!”
Guitarist Kyp Malone takes over vocal duties on “Golden Age,” before Tunde is back behind the wheel on a ferocious “Lazerray.” It’s amazing to hear “Happy Idiot” live after all these years too.
The crowd energy that was lacking during Future Islands’ set finally arrives for the classic “Wolf Like Me,” a big circle pit forming after the breakdown, and continues on “Could You.”
The sinister “DLZ” rumbles along in its deep bass menacingly, Tunde absolutely tearing up that closing “Never you mind, death professor” mantra. I’m absolutely singing at the top of my lungs on “Trouble,” and by the time the set closes with the mammoth “Staring at the Sun,” I find myself jumping around in the pit too. An absolutely unreal set—the best of the weekend for me!
After a quick rehydration, I return to the Forest Stage and can’t even get into the front section, such is the size of the crowd gathered for Alexander Leon Gumuchian, a.k.a. BBNO$.
Dressed as a circus ringleader, he spits out his rhymes over backing tracks, with “Check” and “1-800” getting a lot of love. Of course, it’s “Edamame” that gets the biggest roars. Alex enjoys himself too, declaring, “Not gonna lie, this might be one of my favourite shows ever!”
All the while, to match his outfit appropriately, the stage is a literal circus, with jugglers and gymnasts adding to the spectacle. It’s a wild time, and for someone I didn’t really know beforehand, I’m impressed!
I start to get weather warnings on my phone as I head across to see The Chainsmokers, and sure enough, there are a couple of flashes of lightning in the distance over the city that make me fear the worst.
The set starts triumphantly enough, stage fireworks accompanying “Roses,” and then the rain starts to fall during “Don’t Let Me Down.”
Sure enough, 10 minutes in, the plug is pulled on all sets across the site, putting us all in limbo. I wait in the rain for 10 to 15 minutes or so, but with no end in sight—and the fear of today’s sellout crowd of 55,000 all trying to get into the Metro at the same time—I elect to head out too.
I was curious to see The Chainsmokers and Tyler, the Creator, but not enough to stand in cold, wet clothes for the foreseeable future.
It seems that most people wait out the rain delay, as the Metro isn’t too crazy, but I’m grateful for a warm shower and a (relatively) early night in readiness for Day 3 tomorrow. Despite the rain truncation, it’s a fantastic Day 2 for sure!
Simon Williams
Sunday
By Sunday, it’s almost a running joke that it doesn’t matter how late we arrive for a set from one of those TikTok artists—we’ll still catch the famous song right at the end. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens with Gigi Perez too. We arrive around 4:45 p.m. as she serenades an unsurprisingly enormous crowd with a vibe that’s distinctly Soccer Mommy, and the sight is not lost on Gigi: “You guys are beautiful!”
As she closes out her set with the breakthrough “Sailor Song,” a billion phones shoot up into the air and press record, and arms are waving as Gigi and her band drop off their instruments to really amplify the already huge singalong even more. She’s an excellent compere too, declaring, “GET READY FOR MARINA, ONE OF MY FAVOURITE ARTISTS OF ALL TIME!” High praise!
Marina (no longer with The Diamonds) looks like the stereotypical diva the minute she arrives on stage. Clad in high heels, white short-shorts, and an immaculate hairdo, her sound is distinctly sleazy electro-synth, breezing through “Venus Fly Trap” and “Froot” to open the set. By “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land,” a good chunk of her adoring crowd are starting to lose their minds.
I’m honestly finding it a bit of a struggle to engage with it, though, with endless selfie-taking and inane conversation surrounding me this far back. I can barely handle more than two bands in a row in the main stage area, too, so I definitely can’t handle the prospect of camping out here for the rest of the day just to get a good spot for the headliner. So off I wander…
Having lunch with a friend earlier in the day, I showed him the schedule and asked him who he’s heard of. He’s not a music guy at all. So imagine my surprise when he tells me BigXthaPlug. I’d never even heard of him before the festival, but after a few listens, I’m into it. Hip-hop, without the sexual vulgarity (which was ruling out some of the contenders I was investigating).
The Texan draws a huge crowd well in advance of his start time, and a DJ plays for a full 10 minutes before Big X even arrives, promising, “This gon’ be the best show on motherf**kin’ earth tonight!”
When he does arrive, clad in shorts and a hoodie, arms immediately start bouncing like an 8 Mile rap battle, and he spits rhymes relentlessly, both solo and with some guest vocalists on a couple of tracks. The comparisons with Notorious B.I.G. are inescapable—both physically (he’s a big dude too) and sonically, his voice deep and guttural.
“I know hip-hop, but I also got one of the biggest country songs in the world!” The song in question, “All the Way,” his recent collaboration with country artist Bailey Zimmerman, gets the biggest singalong so far.
Before long, his request to set up THREE mosh pits is granted, with two in front of his stage and another on the one adjacent forming. A water cannon blasts the crowd, and the place goes insane. Big X is impressed: “Y’all took this from an 8 to a 10!”
“MmHmm” and “Texas” get a ton of love to close a phenomenal set—a highlight of the weekend for me.
In all my years of going to Osheaga, I’ve never visited the Scène de l’Île, that smaller stage halfway before the two main stage areas. What was I thinking? This stage is amazing! It has its own food and drink area, decking at the back to relax as if you’re on a terrasse… and way less crowded than the other stages.
I catch a couple of songs of Oden & Fatzo tearing up the place, but the main reason for my visit is the set of French house duo Jersey. I was fortunate to catch a music festival in the French Alps this summer, and these guys were playing at the end of the night. It was almost 1 a.m., so I didn’t catch the whole set, but was definitely up for seeing them again. And a 6:50 p.m. Osheaga set is much more manageable!
They wear their influences on their sleeve, proudly displaying their name in the font of the classic Deadmau5 or Justice logos, and even spell out “Jersey Shore” in the font of Daft Punk. Their industrial brand of house gets the place dancing pretty quickly, before a remix of “1901” takes things up a notch.
A cover of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” (with a robot voice) goes down well too. The last song is pure euphoria, with intense strobe lights flashing throughout to close out an epic hour.
And finally, it’s back to the main stage area. Cage the Elephant have come a long way since I saw them at the now-defunct La Tulipe way back in 2010—still the only gig I ever had a pair of glasses destroyed (during “Back Against the Wall,” FYI)!
It’s thrilling to see them own the main stage at Osheaga with such confidence, and why not? At this point, they can play the perfect set. “Ready to Let Go,” “Neon Pill,” “Mess Around,” “Trouble”… the bangers come one after the other.
Frontman Matt Shultz is having a blast too, declaring early in the set, “I’m having the best time I’ve had on stage in a long time. I feel like I’m losing myself!”
The feeling is mutual, for sure. “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” gets a huge singalong from the back of the adjacent stage where I find myself located, and during “Telescope,” Matt requests, “Get those lights up!”
Thousands of lights illuminate from the stage to the back hill, and it looks breathtaking. Even Matt is taken aback: “When I saw those lights, I almost broke down in tears!”
My glasses survive “Back Against the Wall” this time around, and the memorable set closes out with an anthemic “Cigarette Daydreams” (with another burst of phone lights) and a monstrous “Come a Little Closer,” complete with Rammstein-esque flame bursts across the stage. An absolutely stellar set, worthy of headlining in its own right.
But there’s no question that in the eyes of the majority here, today belongs to Olivia Rodrigo.
The Osheaga socials broadcast interviews with fans who have been lining up since as early as 3:30 a.m. to get a good spot, and there’s a lot of them. Casual viewers such as myself can’t get anywhere near her stage before Cage the Elephant even started!
So let’s be honest: Olivia could fart into her mic for 90 minutes, and it would still be most people’s highlight of the weekend.
After 10 minutes of darkness, the stage starts to stir into life at 9:00 p.m., and hundreds of phones fly up into the air. It looks like a sea of skyscrapers between me and the stage. Fireworks explode as she arrives, and starting with “Obsessed,” Olivia patrols the stage like a seasoned pro, climbing above a worm’s-eye-view camera as more fireworks explode and her guitarist belts out a huge solo. And that’s just the first song.
For the entire set, the singalong is hands-down the loudest I’ve ever heard at Osheaga. Much of Olivia’s catalogue is quite mellow, often piano-led, and in those moments, the fervour in the singing goes up a level—such as on “Vampire” (or at least the intro), “Drivers License,” and “Traitor.”
She’s often on guitar too, strumming an acoustic on “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” and an electric on “Enough for You.” She’s a mesmerizing presence without any instruments too, prowling the stage as fireworks explode on “Bad Idea,” or while flames roar on “Good 4 U.” She really does have it all.
Looking out at the crowd a few songs in, she asks, “It’s the last GUTS tour show ever tonight. Did we save the best show for last?!” The screams from the crowd suggest it might well be.
So is there anything negative to report? Well, previous stops on the tour saw Olivia joined by various special guests on stage; for example, Weezer at Lollapalooza, Robert Smith at Glastonbury, David Byrne at Governors Ball.
Fan rumours had abounded beforehand that perhaps Simple Plan or Alanis Morissette would come out at Montreal? Olivia teases at one point, “I don’t usually do this, but I’m feeling nostalgic ‘cos it’s the last night of the tour…”
Excitement builds. Is this the moment??
Alas, no. We got a rare airing of “All I Want,” but that’s it. Was Montreal not cool enough to get a special guest too?
The age demographic of her fanbase is not overly conducive to an Osheaga headline set either. The sight of tiny elementary school girls squished like sardines into a crowd of standing adults was difficult to see. I hope they were able to get to the hill at the back for a better view—or get held up by their parents.
The subject of Olivia’s bad language in the presence of such young ears is probably a subject for another day. Someone said to me that Olivia was basically Avril Lavigne with a potty mouth, and it’s hard to shake off that comparison as she’s yelling “FAME F*CKER!” repeatedly during “Vampire.”
Anyway, I digress. All in all, it’s a grandiose end to another spectacular edition of Osheaga, with 142,000 attendees over the three days, and I’m already counting down the days until next summer.
See you on July 31, 2026!
Simon Williams
Photos – Steve Gerrard
iPhone photos – Simon Williams
