Revealed: Time Out Montreal's 2023 Best of the City Awards

Forget your mental images of small-stage-single-spotlight standup. Kickback brings the PARTY. The vibe at a Kickback night is mayhem, basically, with ridiculous laughs, lots of music and outlandish animation that’s likely to rope the whole crowd into a spontaneous singalong at any given time. Founders Eva Alexopoulos and DJ Micah have done live comedy in Montreal the service of breaking down that staid performer/audience barrier and getting everyone laughing, dancing—and drunk.

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It was a definite coup for Montreal and the MURAL festival to make Mount Royal the latest location for SAYPE’s international art project. The gigantic temporary and fully biodegradable mural was painted at the foot of the mountain on the Parc Avenue side, depicting the French artist’s signature shaking hands in a representation of collaboration, solidarity and peace. The Beyond Walls project has been travelling all over the world since 2019, from Paris to New York, Asia and the Middle East.

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What a cool discovery this was. This travelling exhibition from the Buffalo AKG Art Museum presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts introduced Montrealers to a name that may be ubiquitous in some circles, but certainly wasn’t on these shores. Marisol was a Paris-born Venezuelan artist whose edgy sculptures are only one facet of a really fascinating multimedia practice. She was a fixture in New York’s ‘60s art scene (featuring in Warhol films, even) and represented Venezuela at the 1968 Venice Biennale. The show does an awesome job at mixing her canonical work with sketches and inspirations, giving a great BTS perspective. See it before it ends in the new year.

Moment Factory did it again this year with this enveloping meditative experience that invited visitors to turn their gaze within, road-tested for the first time here in their native city before they take it out to the world. Miroir Miroir presented five immersive art installations that seamlessly meshed staging, lighting, sound and narrative into a full-body, interactive happening for all ages. The theme was consciousness and creativity (a Moment Factory forte).

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One of the funnest post-pandemic rising-phoenix stories, Champs has turned its machismo past as a typical sports bar into um, still a sports bar, but also an inclusive LGBTQ+ hangout with some of the best theme nights in town. To wit: the Showtunes Singalongs, which swap out some of the live games on screen for some killer group karaoke. There are also quizz nights, queer line dancing nights, Drag Race watch parties (go Denim!) and a very respectable wine list indeed.

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With a lineup that included Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem, Sofi Tukker, Armani White, The National, Lido Pimienta, Joey Bada$$, Carly Rae Jepsen and The Flaming Lips (backed by giant hot-pink inflatable robots), the sweet 16th edition of Osheaga sealed the summer as one of the best yet. As usual the fest took over Parc Jean-Drapeau, but the massively re-landscaped festival site made it an even smoother experience than previously—and lucky too, since there were record-breaking crowds. Kudos to homegrown Charlotte Cardin and Milk & Bone for standing tall among this international who’s who.