Although festival season winded down, we couldn’t resist rockin’ it one more time at Rifflandia, a pride and joy of one of our home cities, Victoria B.C. Spanning 10+ venues, 300+ artists, 4 nights and 3 days, the city is brings a large variety of people. Due to it’s eccentric lineups and various venues and shows, it attracts nearly every subculture in the city and beyond.
The lineup this year featured electronic music giants Bonobo, Z-Trip, and legendary figure Moby, along with rock acts July Talk, Yukon Blonde, Said the Whale. Plus, heavier artists like Pigeon Hole, A Tribe Called Red, Five Alarm Funk and so many more.
Most of our focus was on those sweet electronic acts this weekend, which arguably made up the majority of the festival.
Thursday!
The first night. Only one venue open, but luckily it was a big one! Closing down the street between Capital Iron and Phillips, they create Electric Avenue, a fenced in multi-venue experience with 4 beer gardens and 3 stages! We made our way down to the venue and immediately enjoyed the set up. It had a very open vibe; everyone had the right idea and everyone was ready to get down.
Starting things off on our side of things was the Deadbeats Block Party. Bringing together crowd favourites Zeds Dead, with newcomers Grandtheft, G Jones and Boogie T to showcase some of the best and brightest of the Deadbeats label to our little city. It was well worth it, no doubt about that.
Beyond some sound issues, this was the perfect way to begin a festival that was clearly just starting. We tried to catch Bass Coast Festival founder The Librarian laying down her bass beats at Lucky Bar, but fell victim to one of the only drawbacks of this beautiful festival . . . the venue. The venue itself works so well, but putting such high energy DJs and performers into a space with only 150 person capacity seems bit short-sighted. Nevertheless, we kept on going! Sleep was on the agenda that night, since we still had a full weekend of dancing ahead!
Friday!
We woke up to beauty skies and friendly smiles all around Victoria, as Rifflandia was officially starting. This was the first day with the main stage open at Royal Athletic Park, and the energy was ELECTRIC. The electronic music was later in the day, but we had a blast rockin’ out to Five Alarm Funk, July Talk, and The Leg Up Program. Each artist delivered blistering rock sets that had us jumping and dancing around til the bitter end.
From there, we went to arguably the largest part of the evening—the night! We headed down for our pals Skiitour, Bliss n Esso, and DJ Shub, formerly of Tribe Called Red (exclusive interview coming soon on DMNW). Then, had the opportunity to check out the funkiest keytar player around, K+Lab!
This has so far been an amazing weekend of incredible beats, and it was far from over yet! DMNW also had the lucky opportunity to attend special afterparty, where we witnessed a rap battle between some of Victoria’s best underground MCs, along with Bliss n Esso. Those photos are for another day, though.
Important things happen in Pacific Northwest nightlife, and DMNW will send you alerts!
