“Weird Al” Yankovic is coming back for another free outdoor show at Montreal’s Just for Laughs — and so it seems that this 44th festival, running July 15 to 26, is also on the comeback trail after a rocky, near-calamitous ride a few years back.

Yankovic, performing July 25 at 9 p.m. at Place des festivals, brought the venue down, despite inclement conditions, at the 2015 JFL. The fest that summer — the 33rd edition — also appeared to hit its highest gear yet, bringing down indoor and outdoor venues alike and featuring an unprecedented array of stars: Mike Myers, Trevor Noah, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Jane Lynch, Patton Oswalt, Colin Jost, Tom Papa, J.B. Smoove, Margaret Cho, Jimmy Carr, Gilbert Gottfried, Sebastian Maniscalco, Janeane Garofalo, Hasan Minhaj.

Fans are likely still salivating over that lineup. But times have changed over the ensuing years. Really changed.

COVID came and took a devastating toll on JFL — and most other festivals — for several years, beginning in 2020. With live concerts verboten at the beginning, comedians took their acts online — with limited results. JFL didn’t fare much better in the years that followed, with both performers and audiences somewhat leery about attending live events.

Then competition unlike anything JFL had ever experienced came with the arrival of the biennial Netflix Is a Joke Festival, launched in 2022. This year’s event, which ran May 4 to 10, was declared the biggest comedy event in history, featuring more than 475 shows and 500 artists performing in over 45 venues in Los Angeles. Hard to compete with that, all the more so since Netflix was also able to offer many of the comedians specials on its streaming network.

Further exacerbating JFL’s woes were financial issues and improprieties that brought down the........

© Montreal Gazette