Things to do in Montréal this week: June 28 – July 4

Sunday and Monday are your window before the rain moves in hard. St. Vincent — Annie Clark, the American guitarist and songwriter who built her reputation in electronic and indie rock — plays Place des Arts on Sunday at 7:30 PM. This is a major draw; Clark's work spans from spartan, guitar-driven indie to synth-heavy production that keeps audiences off balance in the best way. If you want to pair it with dinner, Jacopo in the Plateau handles Italian done right without pretension, and it's the kind of place that feels good before or after a show. On the same Sunday evening, Daniel Tosh performs at the Olympia Theatre at 7:00 PM if stand-up is your call.

Monday sits at the pivot point. El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico — the Puerto Rican salsa orchestra that has anchored the genre for decades — plays the Wilfrid-Pelletier at 7:30 PM. This is one of those acts where the name carries the weight; fifty years in, they are still pulling crowds. Joshua Redman, the American jazz saxophonist, takes Théâtre Maisonneuve at 9:00 PM the same night. If you have to choose one, Redman's reputation as both a composed player and an improviser makes for a tighter, more intimate evening than the Gran Combo's arena-scale celebration.

Tuesday through Friday, the forecast flips. Showers arrive Tuesday and Wednesday brings thunderstorms with hail — the kind of day that makes you want to be indoors somewhere warm, ideally with a drink. This is when Montréal's club culture earns its keep. Butcher Brown and Nicholas Payton hit Club Soda on Monday at 9:00 PM (get ahead of the weather), and Payton's reputation as a post-bop trumpet player who refuses to stay in one lane is reason enough. Later in the week, as the storms settle into a damp drizzle by Saturday, you want Maggie Oakes — the bar and grill with the kind of solid foundations that make you forget you are watching rain streak the windows. It is the sort of place where the food and the company matter more than the weather forecast.

Victor Wooten, the bassist who anchored Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, plays Club Soda on Sunday at 9:00 PM. If you are still riding the momentum from the St. Vincent show or looking for a second wind that day, Wooten's technical precision and compositional voice make for a different kind of evening — less art-rock, more jazz-inflected virtuosity. Rilès, the Franco-Algerian songwriter who works across English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and even Japanese, has two performances at MTELUS on June 28 and 29; his work sits somewhere between singer-songwriter and experimental pop.

If you have a single night to burn this week, make it Monday for Joshua Redman at Théâtre Maisonneuve — the jazz is sharp, the room is comfortable, and you beat the rain by a few hours.