Article content Nashville is where country-music dreams are made and also where most of them die. For those lucky enough to live the dream, Montreal has become a part of it. The third annual Lasso Montréal Festival was held Friday and Saturday with country fans packing Parc Jean-Drapeau for non-stop music from 2 until 11 p.
m. both days. The headliners were Eric Church on Friday and Sam Hunt on Saturday — two of country’s biggest stars.
There were eight other performers both days on each of the two massive side-by-side main stages, along with five other performers each day on a third smaller stage. The two-day pass cost $240, which in today’s concert market is a bargain considering the amount of entertainment that included other big country stars like Dustin Lynch, Tyler Hubbard, Megan Moroney, Brett Young, Kip Moore and Chayce Beckham, who was the winner of the popular American Idol TV singing competition in 2021. There were also up-and-coming stars like MacKenzie Porter, who grew up in a musical family on a ranch in Medicine Hat, Alta.
Porter started taking music lessons at age 4, learning to play the guitar, violin and piano, and fell in love with country music while listening to it in her father’s truck. She was inspired by The Chicks and fellow Canadian Shania Twain. In 2013, Porter sent a handful of songs to Sony Music Publishing in Canada and landed a deal.
A year later, she moved to Nashville to write songs and chase her dream. Four years ago, that dream was .