10 POP Montréal 2026 Artists to Catch Before the Rest of the City Does
POP Montréal 2026 returns September 23–27 for its 25th anniversary, bringing 5 days of independent music, emerging artists and beautiful musical oddities to venues across Montréal. Here are the 10 artists Best Kept MTL thinks deserve a spot on your festival itinerary.
There are festivals built around headliners. Then there’s POP Montréal, where the artist you remember most may be the one you’d never heard of before walking into a Mile End basement.
For its 25th edition, the Montréal music festival is mixing legends, cult favourites and what creative director Daniel Seligman calls “up-and-coming gems.”
We went looking for the latter — with a few irresistible rule-breakers — prioritizing stage presence, emerging momentum, personality and eclectic sound.
One practical note: the 2026 UCI Road World Championships are happening in Montréal from September 19–27, with traffic and parking disruptions around several festival-heavy neighbourhoods. Check the City of Montréal’s official road-closure information and give yourself extra travel time.
Wednesday, September 23: POP Montréal Begins Underground
1. Dutch Interior
📍 La Sotterenea — 8:15 PM | Google Maps
California’s Dutch Interior make sprawling indie rock that feels loose, textured and slightly unruly — exactly the sort of band POP Montréal is designed to put in a basement before everybody starts talking about them. They share the night with Racecourse and Lapelúda.
2. Hana Stretton
📍 La Sala Rossa — 8 PM | Google Maps
Australian artist Hana Stretton represents POP’s quieter side: intimate, atmospheric music that makes you lean toward the stage instead of shouting at it. Add Lune Très Belle and Eliza Niemi and Wednesday suddenly gets beautifully strange.
Thursday, September 24: From Whispers to Bloghouse
3. Sarah Julia
📍 Théâtre Rialto — 8 PM | Google Maps
Dutch sisters Sarah Julia bring intertwined voices and emotionally precise indie folk to one of Montréal’s most atmospheric theatres. They share the Rialto with Les Hay Babies and Chad VanGaalen.
4. Uffie
📍 Piccolo Rialto — 10 PM | Google Maps
Emerging? No. Charisma? Plenty. Uffie is our deliberate rule-breaker. Her electro/bloghouse DNA belongs in a late-night POP Montréal story, especially alongside Plumbing, CFCF and Peer Pressure DJs.
Friday, September 25: POP Gets Unpredictable
5. JayaHadADream
📍 Le Ministère — 8 PM | Google Maps
British rapper JayaHadADream brings Jamaican-Irish roots, grime energy and the confidence of an artist whose trajectory is accelerating. With Sonido Pesao, KEROUÉ and Kamilou sharing the bill, this might be Friday’s most globally Montréal lineup.
6. Infinite Coles at Bizarre Ball
📍 Rialto Hall — 7:30 PM | Google Maps
Some performances you watch. Others you enter. Infinite Coles appears as special guest at Bizarre Ball, where music, fashion, nightlife and performance collide. Very POP. Very Friday.
Saturday, September 26: Montréal After Dark
7. Spitty
📍 L’Escogriffe — 8:30 PM | Google Maps
Spitty lands on a wonderfully unpredictable four-artist bill with Fyore, LYDOL and SEMIAH. Small room, multiple sounds, no obvious algorithm telling you what comes next — basically the POP Montréal proposition in miniature.
8. Automatic
📍 Bar Le Ritz PDB — 8 PM | Google Maps
Los Angeles trio Automatic gets our second Saturday spot. In a night packed with competing bills, their appearance with Accessory at Le Ritz offers the kind of sharp left turn that rewards abandoning the obvious itinerary.
Sunday, September 27: Finish Without Borders
9. Minyo Crusaders
📍 Bar Le Ritz PDB — 8 PM | Google Maps
Japanese folk music colliding with Latin, African, Caribbean and Asian rhythms sounds improbable until Minyo Crusaders make it sound inevitable. If POP Montréal is about musical borders disappearing for a weekend, here’s your finale.
10. Infinity Song
📍 Théâtre Rialto — 8 PM | Google Maps
Sibling group Infinity Song closes our list with lush harmonies and genre-resistant songwriting that somehow feels vintage and completely current. Montréal’s 110% opens the night.
Three more to keep on your radar: Montréal art-punks La Sécurité, explosive Shunk, and rising local voice Kamilou.
Twenty-five years in, POP Montréal still understands something essential about this city: discovery is more interesting when it requires a little wandering. See the full POP Montréal 2026 calendar and build your own route.
After a few late nights chasing live music across the city, decompress at Bota Bota’s new Pavillon, a waterfront reset for when your body needs a little recovery from POP Montréal.
