This year's festival started on July 9 and continues until July 19 with major headliners of every genre. On any given night you can see jazz, Americana, nu-metal, country, thrash metal, hip-hop, Francophone music, Latin music, reggae, dancehall and everything in between. It's one of Canada's most eclectic festivals, and also provides some of the best value for a shareable $180 festival pass that covers all 11 days.
Billboard Canada was there for the opening stretch. Before FEQ continues this weekend with sets by acts like Gwen Stefani, Jessie Reyez, Muse and Jelly Roll, here are the highlights from the festival's first weekend.
Closing out the main stage on the first night of FEQ on July 9, Limp Bizkit took the crowd back to 1999. That was the year the nu-metal band played their infamous set at Woodstock '99, unfairly taking the lion's share of the blame for inciting the riotous crowd during "Break Stuff." The response is slightly more tame two and a half decades later (lead singer Fred Durst even instructed fans to raise an "X" with their hands if they needed help), but the performance still brought back old angsty feelings. Durst's beard is now grey, but his swagger is in tact as ever as he raps and screams through surprisingly funky hits like "Nookie" and Limp Bizkit's transformational cover of George Michael's "Faith." As always, guitarist Wes Borland came dressed in an over-the-top outfit and shredded when he needed to.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
It was heartening to see many of the elder Millennials and Gen Xers in the crowd, who reached back to rap, mosh and crowdsurf along with every word of pissed-off generational anthems like "My Way" and "My Generation." But it was a much younger fan who caught most of the attention on this night: 19-year-old Dylane Lapointe. Dressed like vintage Fred Durst in her backwards red Yankees cap, jorts and drawn-on goatee, she was picked out of the crowd to duet with him on "Full Nelson." She channeled him perfectly, trading verses with him and joining up to scream the chorus. "I like your style," he said. "I like your style too," she answered.
After the performance, she was interviewed throughout Quebec media. An unlikely star was born.
With a history stretching back more than three decades, Cypress Hill have a rightful place in hip-hop history, but sometimes it's taken for granted how influential they are in so many different ways. Playing the main stage before Limp Bizkit, they showed that full versatility.
The set list was expertly constructed, with stretches of songs representing different phases of the group (or eras, as the kids might say now). They started with hard-hitting rap tunes like "How I Could Just Kill A Man" and "When The Shit Goes Down," then progressed into their stoner tracks like "Hits From The Bong" and "Dr. Greenthumb," matching the cannabis leaf-festooned skull on their stage setup. They also played "Wacha Trucha," a song from their upcoming Spanish-language album Dios Bendiga, showing the influence they've had on the current boom of Latin music as a major Latin-American hip-hop group of the golden era.
But the most incendiary part of the concert was their rap-rock section, which showed why they were on this nu-metal bill. Tracks like "Can't Get The Best of Me" and "(Rock) Superstar" came with the heavy guitars and early-2000s angst that made them an influence on bands like Korn, Deftones and Rage Against The Machine. Rage covered their song "How I Could Just Kill A Man" in the 2000s, and at FEQ they returned the favour with a cover of their own tune "Bombtrack." They finished with their biggest classic "Insane in the Brain" followed by a cover of its spiritual cousin, Everlast's "Jump Around."
Cypress Hill at FEQ 2026David Garcia / Billboard Canada
bbno$ headlined the second stage on Friday night (July 10), and it was fully packed with fans ready to hear the viral rapper and Billboard Canada cover star. The artist said he experienced travel delays travelling from Vancouver specifically for FEQ, and wanted to make it count by leaving everything on stage.
He used every ounce of energy, jumping around and dancing and connecting with the audience. It was part of his Internet Explorer tour, and used that throwback imagery throughout (including an opening supercut of TikToks telling bbno$ he sucks), but also tailored the set to his Quebec City fans. He gave away a French cookbook, laced his banter with Quebecois vulgarities, and even danced along with some Francophone folk songs and a jingle for local restaurant Barbie's Resto Bar Grill.
After the concert, he dropped in with his DJ Noche to play a remixed version of "Come To Brazil" on Parking Radio.
Americana folk-rock band The Lumineers headlined the main stage on Friday (July 10) opposite bbno$, but fans who wanted to catch both could have because the band played well past the usual 11 pm closing time. The band felt the air of occasion and put a little extra something into the performance of hits like "Ho Hey" and "Ophelia." It felt at times like seeing a classic rock band as they laced a cover of The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" into their own tunes, and even spent one song trading vocals between every member of the band like The Band.
Unlike many of the bands who play that massive stage, The Lumineers also had a platform that snaked into the crowd and went there often to connect directly with the fans. At the end, lead singer Wesley Schultz admitted they were trying to keep it together, but this was the biggest crowd they've ever played for as a headliner. They were clearly very grateful.
The Lumineers at FEQ 2026FEQ
Les Louanges was recently announced as a shortlister for this year's Polaris Music Prize for his album Alouette!. In an interview with Billboard Canada (video coming soon), the band's principal member Vincent Roberge said that means a lot to him because it crowns the best Canadian album of the year, not the best Francophone album of the year or any other genre caveats. If fans can get past the language barrier, it's clear he can connect deeply with any audience.
Roberge grew up just across the river from Quebec City in Lévis and grew up going to FEQ, so it was heartening to see the second stage completely packed for the hometown boy. It was a true rock star performance as fans sang along to every word of his Alouette! songs, which are laden with Quebec references and nuanced explorations of that national identity. His songs blend yacht rock, indie, R&B and soul with virtuosity and depth, with plenty of moments for showboating.
In French, Roberge talked about his history with FEQ and said he dreams one day of playing the enormous main stage on the Plains of Abraham. After seeing the way his fans responded to him, it feels like a dream within reach.
Les Louanges at FEQ 2026FEQ
Puerto Rican superstar Luis Fonsi was supposed to play FEQ in 2022 before a thunderstorm forced the festival to cancel his planned set. Quebec loves Latin music, and he couldn't wait to come back and play for them. (Strange fact: Fonsi has played multiple shows in the province of Quebec, but never elsewhere in Canada.)
On the mainstage in 2026, he made up for lost time. Fonsi played songs from throughout his career, which stretches way back to the original "Latin Explosion" in the late '90s. He can sing romantic ballads and play more up-tempo party styles, including salsa, and he played it all. He even threw in a cover of Whitney Houston's immortal hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
But it was his own smash that closed the set with one of the festival's biggest moments: "Despacito." After its Justin Bieber remix, that song became the first Spanish language hit to top the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 in 2017 and briefly held the record for the longest-leading No. 1 hit. Its the kind of song that is built for festivals like these, easily connecting with 70,000 fans at once and inspiring them to sing and dance along.
Chuck Billy, lead singer of thrash metal legends Testament, told the crowd on the packed second stage that when he saw the FEQ lineup he wondered if there would be metal heads there. As soon as he saw that audience full of Slayer shirts, devil horns and mosh pits, he knew he was wrong to doubt. FEQ draws crowds for all genres, but metal holds a special spot in Quebec City's heart, and they always show up with energy for heavy hitters.
The band, which stretches back to the golden thrash era of the 1980s, brought the energy with big riffs, bigger shoutalong choruses, and plenty of double-guitar solos. The audience fed back by singing and thrashing along to every song. "I love how much Quebec loves metal!" Billy said.
Testament at FEQ 2026FEQ
Michael Bublé is a proud Canadian, but doesn't always get to play major shows on home turf. He was proud to bring his whole family with him to Quebec City, where he headlined the main stage on Sunday night (July 12), and he said he was happy to be able to tell them "this is Canada!"
He ran through a set of jazz standards for the multigenerational crowd, along with a couple of songs he called country — but in the vein of Ray Charles or Willie Nelson doing jazz. Bublé let his trumpet player Jumaane Smith, take the spotlight for a song while he did the classic backup dance with the rest of the horn section. He asked for a bigger applause for Smith, who is a powerhouse in his own right, then said the crowd did great but not to applaud louder than for Bublé himself. "I'm a needy bitch," he joked.
Later, Bublé brought out another guest star, Quebec's own Roxane Bruneau, for their bilingual version of his fan favourite "Home," which was a Billboard Canada Airplay hit. Afterwards, he gushed about the moment and said "having Roxane up here was one of my favourite things ever."
