Boots, big names and a growing country crowd: LASSO Montreal marks fifth edition
Posted August 15, 2026 11:57 pm.
Last Updated August 16, 2026 12:01 am.
Boots were made for walking — and on Saturday, they led thousands of country music fans to Île Sainte-Hélène.
LASSO Montreal opened its fifth edition at Parc Jean-Drapeau, bringing international headliners, rising stars and homegrown talent together for a two-day celebration of country music.
For some fans, the festival has become an annual tradition. For others, it is worth travelling hours to experience.
One group of friends drove 13 hours from Hearst, Ont., after seeing the lineup and deciding the trip was worth it.
“It’s pretty fun. We drove 13 hours to be here, so it’s people all over the country. So it’s fun,” one fan said.
The journey reflects the growing reach of LASSO, which has drawn fans from across Canada since its launch in Montreal in 2022.
Five years of LASSO
The two-day festival has grown into one of Canada’s largest country music festivals.
This year’s lineup features Thomas Rhett and Mumford & Sons as headliners, along with Koe Wetzel, Carly Pearce, Turnpike Troubadours, Max McNown, Cameron Whitcomb, James Barker Band and The Band Perry among the performers.
Organizers also shifted to a Saturday-Sunday format for the first time, following LASSO in the City on Friday evening.
Last year’s festival drew a record 51,500 attendees, underscoring the event’s growing popularity in a city better known for jazz, comedy and electronic music festivals.
But LASSO has steadily carved out its own place on Montreal’s summer festival calendar.
Since its debut, the festival has welcomed some of country music’s biggest names, including Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan, Jelly Roll, Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini, Eric Church and Sheryl Crow.
Country comes to the city
Located minutes from downtown Montreal, Parc Jean-Drapeau offers a backdrop that is hard to miss, with the city skyline rising beyond the festival grounds.
Across four stages, fans moved between country, Americana, folk and southern rock performances throughout Saturday.
For longtime attendees, the festival has become about more than the music.
“I find this festival is so much fun. It just gathers people from all ages, and it really doesn’t matter. Country music just brings people together, and it’s just so awesome,” said one fan who has attended LASSO since its first Montreal edition.
“Country music just brings people together, and it’s just so awesome.”
Another attendee travelled from Ottawa and said the festival fills a gap for country fans in her hometown.
“This is a lovely festival. I’m from Ottawa, so we don’t have anything like this. It’s very exciting for me,” she said.
Thomas Rhett headlines day one
For Saturday’s headliner, the return to Montreal marked another chapter in a relationship that began in 2019.
Thomas Rhett last performed in the city in 2023 during his Bring the Bar to You tour. This time, he returned to headline LASSO for the first time.
“It’s a big deal for me,” Rhett said. “I’ve seen, obviously, so many pictures over the last three or four years of this festival and how much it’s grown.”
After a decade of touring in Canada, Rhett said Montreal still feels like a relatively new market for him.
“I’ve been touring in Canada for 10 years, but it wasn’t until 2019 that I came to Montreal for the first time. And then, obviously, in 2023,” he said.
Rhett brought new music with him to LASSO, revealing that he had just finished a record and hoped to begin releasing new music in the fall.
His Soundtrack to Life tour also reflects the role music has played throughout his own life — and the way his songs have followed fans through different stages of theirs.
“I’ve seen moms now bring their six-year-olds to the show,” Rhett said. “So there’s a lot of generations of my music kind of permeating people’s homes.”
For Rhett, songs can become markers of those memories.
“I think music has such a way of just reminding you of where you’ve been and where you’re going. And songs are like timestamps, like memories in your life,” he said.
That connection is something he is now seeing among younger listeners discovering his catalogue for the first time.
“It’s been really cool for us to get out there and play a bunch of first and second record songs because the younger generation is what they want to hear from me, which is pretty wild,” he said.
A strong connection with Quebec
Canadian country music also had a major presence at LASSO, including James Barker Band, which arrived with five Canadian Country Music Association nominations.
For lead vocalist and guitarist James Barker, returning to Montreal is about more than another festival date.
“Oh, man. We love Montreal so much. And LASSO in general has become a really iconic Canadian festival,” Barker said.
He added that the strength of country music in Quebec can sometimes be underestimated.
“Country music is so prominent here. People, I don’t think, realize how big of a deal it is,” he said.
The band’s connection with Quebec has also become a recurring part of its touring schedule.
“We have to come to Quebec every single year. It’s the best crowds we play for,” said bassist Bobby Martin.
For drummer Connor Stephen, there are other reasons to keep coming back.
“Smoked meat and poutine bring us back anytime we get the offer,” Stephen said.
The band is also looking ahead, with new music on the way. Stephen said the group recently released its single “After Dark,” which it first performed in Quebec.
“Seeing the crowd’s reaction to that was unbelievable,” he said. “So, yeah, just all the new music coming.”
A breakout year for Waylon Wyatt
While Rhett represented one of the festival’s established headliners, Arkansas singer-songwriter Waylon Wyatt arrived in Montreal with a rapidly expanding list of career milestones.
Wyatt was headlining the Coca-Cola Stage, a moment he described as “definitely insane.”
“The stage that I’m playing, I’m headlining that stage, so it’s really cool that I get to be a part of that,” he said.
He also joked about the stage’s name.
“I love a Coca-Cola, so like, it’s the perfect mash-up I would say.”
The appearance came during a particularly busy stretch for Wyatt, who has already played major stages including Stagecoach and London’s Hyde Park.
For the young artist, the speed of his rise can be difficult to fully process.
“When I get back home and I’m just laying there in bed, I’m thinking like, wow, I can’t believe that all just happened,” Wyatt said. “It’s been a wild ride.”
He said the connection with fans is what makes those milestones meaningful.
“It means the most, honestly,” Wyatt said. “It’s so cool how many songs that I just put pen to paper and not really thought much to have impacted people’s lives.”
Wyatt is already looking far beyond Montreal, with about 115 shows planned this year and an upcoming Dustpals World Tour that will take him to Europe and Australia.
“It’s crazy to say, like, how far we’ve gotten from just a little town in Arkansas,” he said. “It’s been a wild ride and I’m loving it here in Canada as well.”
Max McNown’s Montreal connection
Max McNown returned to Montreal after performing at Osheaga earlier in the summer, giving him a rare chance to appear at two of the city’s major festivals in the same season.
But McNown’s relationship with Montreal goes beyond the festival circuit.
“Well, statistically, Montreal is one of my largest fan bases in the world. So I will always be coming back to Montreal,” he said.
McNown said he was grateful to have been welcomed at both Osheaga and LASSO.
“I’m not sure how it really went about that I was welcomed at both Osheaga and LASSO. But I’m grateful for it,” he said.
His approach to the LASSO performance was straightforward.
“I’m just going to be who I am and play the best show I can tonight, just like I did at Osheaga,” he said.
After a summer that has included Boots and Hearts and other major festival appearances, McNown said one of the biggest lessons he has learned is to treat every performance as its own experience — whether he is playing for hundreds of fans or tens of thousands.
“Every show is valuable,” he said. “Your job stays the same. And you have to do what you do to the best of your ability.”
Montreal has also already given McNown one of the biggest moments of his young career: performing “Brown Eyes” with the Jonas Brothers at the Bell Centre.
“I got on stage in that arena in Montreal and I just couldn’t believe life was real,” he said. “I think I blacked out, actually.”
What surprised him most was how loudly the crowd responded to a song that was not necessarily familiar to a Jonas Brothers audience.
“I was definitely truly afraid because my music is different than Jonas Brothers,” McNown said. “And I didn’t know if that song was large enough to capture part of a Jonas Brothers crowd. And I was pleasantly surprised.”
For McNown, those moments ultimately come back to the same thing: the relationship between an artist and the people listening.
“It never gets old. That’s the whole reason that I am in the career,” he said. “Music helped me a lot in my life.”
When fans tell him how his songs have helped them through difficult moments, he said it serves as a reminder that the music is reaching people on a deeper level.
“That is one of the best parts of this entire career,” McNown said.
More than a festival
Across the grounds Saturday, the stories were different, but the reason for being there was remarkably similar: people came to share an experience built around music.
With another full day of performances ahead Sunday, the boots are staying on — and LASSO’s growing Montreal chapter is far from over.
