Montreal: Osheaga Festival and Hipsters

A couple weeks ago, Billy and I hopped on a plane to Montreal. Reflecting on our trip, I can’t think of a more opposite city compared to where I live now (near Red Deer, AB). One is primarily French, the other English. Montreal is bohemian. Red Deer is hardworking oilpatch city. Montreal is consumed with creating beauty in any form. Red Deer is more outdoorsy and full of nature enthusiasts. Common ground is found in drink; each place loves beer. There will be more on that soon because I plan to write a blog post about all the microbreweries we visited in Montreal.

Osheaga 2014 Sunset

The main reason I chose to visit Montreal this summer because of the Osheaga music festival. Billy and I had the opportunity to arrive 4 days prior to the festival and by the time the festival rolled around I felt a tiny bit sad because I wanted to keep exploring the city.

I wasn’t disappointed for long because Osheaga was pretty spectacular. It’s a 3 day festival in Parc-Jean Drapeau the island park of on Ile Ste-Hélène. It’s described on the website as a “an island of tranquility…a mixture of rolling pasture and forested areas accented by flowerbeds and open-air artwork brought to the island for Montreal’s Expo ’67.” Well, Osheaga was anything but tranquil with 60,000 people. There were 5 stages set up around the park, plus hammock hangouts in the trees, food truck stops, and a few shady, chill spots. It’s a gorgeous venue for a festival but it’s also swarming with people.

Hammocks in the Woods

I should note that the majority of the crowd at Osheaga wasn’t from Montreal but Ontario and surrounding provinces. We didn’t meet anyone else from Alberta (Sidenote: I saw some Albertans talking about Osheaga in the airport and they were sitting in VIP. Go figure.). The crowd’s attitude was delightful. I’ve never been to a Canadian festival this big and I was surprised that everyone abided by the “Canadian Bubble”. We could weave throughout the crowd to get closer to a show we wanted to see with no hassle and no pushing or nudging at all. I loved it. It was super chill and everyone was respectful of one another.

It was insanely hot all weekend. We were fairly well prepared for the heat, remembering to pack water bottles, keeping bag size to a minimum, and seeking out shady spots often. The weather was a lot more humid so the shows had a hot sweaty feel that I’m used to from punk rock shows, except these were outside in the sun and we could drink beer in the crowd (#winning!).

The Osheaga hipsters had a very distinct style. The typical uniform for the ladies was a pair of high-waisted Levi’s mini-shorts and a crop top. The more ‘unique’, the better. I guessimate that 20,000 girls were sporting this look so it was over saturated and none of them really stuck out from the crowd. This obviously defeated their ‘uniqueness’. While I would watch the girls parade around, I remembered the day when I likely would have fallen right in this category. At that time in my life, between 19-22, I was hunting for my own unique qualities and searching for a scene where I belonged. I couldn’t help but think “Holy smokes, am I ever happy that I am past this stage. Did I look like a hot mess for 4 years?!” On another note, am I really that old to have an ‘Ah ha’ moment at music festival?

For the fellas, it was the typical muscle shirt and shorts with a backwards ball cap. When did backwards ball caps come back into fashion and when will someone tell these people they look like d-bags? Sometimes I think it’s a shame that it’s not stylish for the men to be as flashy as the ladies in their clothes.

Count the backwards caps in this photo… I see 6.

Each day was a sensory overload. The music was loud and awesome, the people watching was SUPERB, and the vibe was fun. My only tip is to leave before the last show ends. I know this sounds like sacrilege but it’s going to save you 2 extra hours of commute time back into the city. Here are some of the photos because in this case photos speak louder than words.