Wednesday, June 14

Beer me. Photo by Olivier Bourget

Free your mind when it comes to defining folk music and enjoy the range of artists who’ll be playing the Montreal Folk Festival on the Canal, a mostly outdoor event with some indoor shows in the same Southwest section of the city, including all-star tributes to Penny Lang and Willie Nelson. The festival kicks off tonight with an opening party at St-Henri’s Bar de Courcelle.

Palais des Congrès hosts the Mondial de la Bière, a festival featuring 529 products available for tasting — most of them beers, though there are also ciders and bites to soak up the suds. 201 Viger W., noon to 11 p.m. Wed to Sat, noon to 6 p.m. Sun, free entry, tasting coupons $1

A new bilingual collective called Our Words As Weapons launches their first collection of poetry and illustrations with a soirée at Apt. 200, featuring recitations and art by local women and tunes from DJ Yuki. Proceeds from the event will go towards local non-profits Action Réfugiés Montréal, Helem Montréal and Centre multiethnique de Québec. 3643 St-Laurent, 5–10 p.m., free

Suoni per il Popolo presents a free line-up of groundbreaking poetry and music at la Vitrola tonight, with performances by Zenship (Tanya Evanson), a poetry-funk mash-up that features Inuit throat singing from Nina Segalowitz, plus Toronto’s award-winning feminist dub poet Lillian Allen and Montreal’s experimental poet and musician Kaie Kellough. 4602 St-Laurent, 8:30 p.m., free

Montreal’s documentary film fest RIDM teams up with Mural Fest to present a free outdoor screening of Olivier Babinet’s stylish 2016 documentary/fiction film Swagger, following the joys and struggles of suburban Parisian youths. Parc Portugal (St-Laurent and Marie-Anne), 9:15 p.m., free

Midwestern rapper and MadLib collaborator Freddie Gibbs is out of jail (he was charged with and subsequently acquitted of sexual assault in Austria last year) and on tour following the release of his latest record You Only Live 2wice. He stops in Montreal (on his 34th birthday, incidentally) to play the Fairmount tonight with openers Speng Squire and Jimmy Brickz. 5240 Parc, 10 p.m. (doors 8 p.m.), $27.50

For more music events, see our Event Listings. Art Listings can be found here.