By David Farrell
You read that right!
There will be no newsletter released next Monday, Wednesday or Friday as the FYI team is taking a break to kick-back and enjoy a holiday break. We promise to return refreshed and ready to roll up our sleeves and get back to the business of the day on Monday, July 15. Until then, happy trails.
Cheers – Team FYI
From Kendrick Lamar’s much-anticipated visit to Toronto to the combustible Oasis reunion at the new Rogers Stadium, these shows are bringing major artists – and some big storylines – to Canadian venues this year.
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour finished its run in 2024 in Toronto and Vancouver, fulfilling years of anticipation, but the appetite for mega-tours and stadium concerts hasn't abated.
Huge tours are thriving, and the concert calendar is already filling up throughout Canada with some major ones. From K-Pop to hip-hop, pop-punk to classic rock to country, there are some huge names coming to the country’s biggest venues.
Here are some of the biggest:
This is it. Pop-punk/heavy rock stars Sum 41 are calling a career and wrapping up with a handful of Canadian dates, including their final show on January 30 in Toronto. They’re going out on a high note, with Heaven :x: Hell accounting for some of their biggest hits in decades. They’ll also be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame soon after. Start practicing your sing-alongs: this is the last chance to belt along with favourites like “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep.”
January 10 – Victoria – Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
January 11 – Vancouver – Rogers Arena
January 13 – Kelowna – Prospera Place
January 16 – Calgary – Scotiabank Saddledome
January 17 – Edmonton – Rogers Place
January 18 – Saskatoon – Sasktel Centre
January 20 – Winnipeg – Canada Life Centre
January 23 – St. Catharines – Meridian Centre
January 24 – Ottawa – Canadian Tire Centre
January 25 – Laval – Place Bell
January 27 – London, ON – Budweiser Gardens
January 28 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
January 30 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena – FINAL SHOW
Some major international names will be donning their puffiest winter jackets for Igloofest 2025, the outdoor festival that runs every year during January and February in Montreal and brings music fans out of hibernation. The festival’s 17th edition promises to get fans dancing down by Montreal’s Old Port, with a flurry of strong headliners: electronic experimentalist and Skrillex collaborator Four Tet, U.K. grime MC Skepta performing his Más Tiempo house DJ set, and Swedish soundcloud rapper Bladee, to name a few, not to mention a deep roster of local talent.
January 16 through February 8 – Montreal – Old Port
Yseult had a big year, featured on one of 2024's most unlikely chart hits, "Alibi" with Sevdaliza and Pabllo Vittar. Known for her deeply personal lyrics and breathtaking vocals, the French singer-songwriter has also captivated fans around the world with hits like "Corps" and "Indélébile." Yseult is coming back to Montreal for her first performance in years, a place where her signature blend of pop and soul seems to resonate in a big way.
January 27 – Montréal – MTELUS
Prince Harry's Invictus Games has some big headliners coming to Vancouver and Whistler this winter. Pop star Katy Perry, anthemic folk singer Noah Kahan, Canadian pop icon Nelly Furtado and Quebec alt-pop singer Roxane Bruneau all play the opening ceremony on February 8, while Jelly Roll closes it down on February 16 with Barenaked Ladies and The War and Treaty. Other artists playing throughout the festivities include Jim Cuddy, Skratch Bastid and more. More info here.
February 8-16 – Vancouver & Whistler, B.C.
Mustafa's Dunya has been celebrated as one of the most acclaimed albums of 2024, and he's using that momentum to launch his first world tour. His star has risen over the past year for both his music and activism. The Toronto-born singer-songwriter’s tour will take him across the U.S. and Europe, plus Ethiopia and Sudan. The lone Canadian date is in Montreal, and it’s sure to be a good one.
February 27 – Montreal – Le National
Tennessee singer Jelly Roll picked Canada for a major milestone in 2024, performing his first international dates in Ottawa and Toronto last summer. This year, he’s ramping up the Canadian connection with a 12-city run, the Beautifully Broken Great Northern Tour. Named for his No. 1 record, Beautifully Broken, the headlining tour will take him from Victoria to Quebec City in March, with rising Canadian country singer Josh Ross along for the ride. A month later, he’ll hit the road again, playing stadiums with Post Malone.
March 6 – Victoria – Memorial Centre
March 8 – Vancouver – Rogers Arena
March 11 – Calgary – Scotiabank Saddledome
March 13 – Edmonton – Rogers Place
March 15 – Saskatoon – SaskTel Centre
March 16 – Regina – The Brandt Centre
March 17 – Winnipeg – Canada Life Centre
March 21 – Ottawa – Canadian Tire Centre
March 22 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
March 23 – London – Canada Life Place
March 25 – Laval – Place Bell
March 26 – Quebec City – Videotron Centre
Billy Joel is returning to active duty. Following "Turn the Lights Back On" heralding his first new music in more than a decade, the legendary piano man is now set to return to Toronto on March 15. The stadium show will be his first performance in the Canadian metropolis in 11 years and his only Canadian performance in 2025. It's also the first time he's played at the home of the Blue Jays in more than 30 years.
March 15 – Toronto – Rogers Centre
As he's transitioned from hip-hop to country, Post Malone has become one of the most popular touring artists. We saw it last year in Quebec City when he played for more than 100,000 people at FEQ, and he has that same big-crowd ambition on his upcoming Big Ass Stadium Tour. That tour will come to Toronto's Rogers Centre in May. Jelly Roll won't be coming with him as he is for much of the rest of the tour (he has his own arena date in the city just a couple of months before), but it seems Posty can fill a stadium on his own.
May 26 – Toronto – Rogers Centre
Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s Grand National Tour, which brings them to stadiums across North America is already set to be one of the hottest tours of the year – but the two Toronto dates will grab the most headlines. These will be Kendrick’s first Toronto shows since his high-profile feud with Drake, and it’s one that beef-lovers will be watching very carefully. Will he perform “Not Like Us” at one of the city’s biggest stages? And how will the hometown crowd react? Many will be watching.
June 12 & 13 – Toronto – Rogers Centre
After a successful first run in 2024, pop-punk palooza All Your Friends Fest is returning to Ontario’s Burl’s Creek this year and bringing some serious 2002 energy. Canadian icons Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan — both of whom released their debut records that year — lead the lineup so far for the second edition, programmed by promoter Republic Live. Get your ties and white tank tops ready now.
June 28 & 29 – Oro-Medonte, Ontario – Burl’s Creek
Stray Kids are one of the hottest acts in K-Pop, and they've been setting records on the Billboard charts. When Live Nation announced Rogers Stadium, a new stadium built just for music, some of the online chatter wondered how many touring acts can fill a venue that size, but the global rise of genres like K-Pop (along with Punjabi, Latin music and more) means there is a diverse range of acts that can headline. For their <dominATE> world tour, it already feels like there's no stage too big for Stray Kids.
June 29 – Toronto – Rogers Stadium
Let’s go (cow)girls. Shania Twain is performing in Calgary for the first time in over a decade this year, headlining the rowdiest show in town, the Calgary Stampede. The Canadian country queen and five-time Grammy winner will head to Calgary this summer after she wraps up a Las Vegas residency this winter. (She also took a moment off from the residency to appear in Sabrina Carpenter’s Netflix Christmas special.) Her brash country pop is sure to get the crowd revved up for the annual rodeo, which draws over a million people to the event grounds.
July 5 – Calgary – Scotiabank Saddledome
As one era ends, another begins: Gracie Abrams capped off her stint opening for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Toronto and Vancouver by announcing a 2025 return to the road. The Secret Life of Us Deluxe Tour — named for the album that hit No. 1 in Canada — heads to six cities next summer, including Toronto’s outdoor Budweiser Stage, where Abrams is sure to bring out her chart-topping and infinitely catchy single “That’s So True.”
July 26 – Toronto – Budweiser Stage
Canada’s newest global pop star is heading on her first arena run through her home country next year. She’ll bring her Miss Possessive tour, which also takes her through Europe and the Americas, to six Canadian cities in August: Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The tour comes alongside the release of her third album, So Close To What on February 21, and gives Canadian fans who didn’t see her at the Calgary Stampede or Toronto’s Budweiser Stage in 2024 the chance to take in the “Greedy” singer and her acclaimed dance moves up close.
August 5 –Vancouver – Rogers Arena
August 7 – Edmonton – Rogers Place
August 9 – Winnipeg – Canada Life Centre
August 19 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
August 22 – Ottawa – Canadian Tire Centre
August 24 – Montreal – Bell Centre
Linkin Park’s new version with Emily Armstrong stepping in for late vocalist Chester Bennington has already been a commercial success in Canada, with their 2024 album From Zero topping the Canadian Albums chart last year. There’s clearly still demand for the nu-metal hitmakers, and Canadian fans will get it this summer at a handful of arenas. Not just a nostalgia tour, these shows are sure to be packed with new material.
August 6 – Bell Centre – Montreal
August 8 – Scotiabank Arena – Toronto
September 21 – Rogers Arena – Vancouver
Emo heroes My Chemical Romance are getting ready for a big anniversary: their bombastic third record, The Black Parade, turns thirty in 2026. They’re celebrating in style this year with a special stadium tour, “Long Live,” which heads to ten cities across the continent, including Toronto’s Rogers Centre. Legendary indie rockers Pixies will be opening for MCR, as thousands of fans fulfill a long-awaited dream: to see the black parade.
August 22 – Toronto – Rogers Centre
Oasis’s reunion tour is so big, Live Nation may have built a stadium for it. The 50,000-capacity Rogers Stadium opens this coming summer, and in a Billboard Canada interview, Erik Hoffman said it was inspired by a band that otherwise would have skipped Toronto. It’s easy to guess he was likely talking about Oasis, whose North American tour was announced shortly after. Anticipation is high for the British rockers, and sportsbooks are already taking bets on if the Gallagher brother frontmen can put aside their combustible rivalry long enough to actually complete the tour. Time will tell.
August 24 & 25 – Toronto – Rogers Stadium
Invictus Games
Jack White – February 6-8 – Toronto – History/Massey Hall & May 22-23 – Vancouver – Commodore Ballroom
Aespa – February 13 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
Kylie Minogue – March 29 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena & March 30 – Montreal – Bell Centre
Bachman-Turner Overdrive – April 1-May 8 – 22 dates throughout Canada (itinerary here)
J Balvin – April 7 – Laval – Place Bell & April 8 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
Nelly with J Rule & Special Guests April 11-July 31 – 10 dates throughout Canada (itinerary here)
Metallica – April 24 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
Shakira – May 20 – Montreal – Bell Centre & May 26 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
Coldplay with Arya Starr and Elyanna – July 8 – Toronto – Rogers Stadium
Country Thunder Saskatchewan featuring Def Leppard, Bailey Zimmerman, Jason Aldean and more – July 10-13 (info here)
Dua Lipa – September 1-2 – Toronto – Scotiabank Arena
System of a Down & Deftones – September 3 & 5 – Toronto – Rogers Stadium
