Bar-hop festival Taverne Tour turns 10 with its most ambitious edition yet

Montreal's scrappiest winter music festival is hitting double digits.

Taverne Tour returns February 12 to 14, 2026, marking a decade of transforming the Plateau Mont-Royal's bars, taverns, and unlikely venues into a sprawling three-night showcase of local and international talent.

The tenth edition, or Taverne Tour X, promises the festival's most ambitious lineup to date with over 100 artists across more than 20 venues. Headliners include Detroit post-punk legends Protomartyr, French electronic duo Kap Bambino, former Girls frontman Christopher Owens, Brooklyn garage rockers The Mystery Lights, and no-wave icon Lydia Lunch performing alongside longtime collaborator Marc Hurtado.

The local contingent runs deep. Nate Husser, Choses Sauvages, Julie Doiron, Sean Nicholas Savage, and Les Freaks de Montréal anchor a bill that spans from the experimental edges to straight-ahead rock, touching on rap, neo-soul, folk, and everything that refuses easy categorization along the way.