You know you're at Pop Montreal when, wandering Mont-Royal around the time Torontonians are grudgingly settling up for last call, you hear an ecstatic dude rush his friend to their next band-watching location with a hiss of, "No! Wayne [Petti] from Cuff [the Duke] promised it'd be an incredible show!" You know you're at Pop Montreal when a drunk fella wobbling on a terasse at midnight brags to his friend, "She said Torngat [featuring members of Bell Orchestre] were okay, but we played with way more passion. She liked us better, guy!" You know you're at Pop Montreal when you...

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MONTREAL - We all knew the honeymoon would have to end someday. Now in its fifth year of no-holds-barred music-before-industry madness -- and riding a steep expansion curve that finds the whole shebang virtually doubling in size and popularity each successive year -- it was inevitable that Pop Montreal would hit carrying capacity sooner than later.

Bolstered by international hype for the semi-fictionalized burgeoning Montreal music scene, the Pop fest has gotten increasingly oversaturated over the past two years, and while it has yet to reach the CMJ lows of access to popular gigs being wholly contingent...

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