The final day of Rifflandia 2016 had a little bit of everything. A little folk, a little soul, a little jazz with a “righteous rainbow”, a little art rock, a little storytelling with a real rainbow, a little techno bass, a little blues rock, and heavy doses of hip hop and indie rock. Weather-wise, Sunday’s weather was a weird mix of sun to cloud to torrential downpour, back to sun which had people running for cover then back out again. The day also had some stage reshuffling due to the cancellation of Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires with Jesse Roper moving up a spot on the main stage, Shane Koyczan moving to the main stage and the addition of Aux 88 in the Rifftop Tent.
Here is our quick photo recap of the final day of Rifflandia 2016.
After you’re done here, be sure to check out the photo recap by Rocktographers.ca
After three late nights and two afternoons of festing, Rifflandia attendees were eased into the day with a daily dose of The Choir on the main stage followed by July 2016 Zone Band of The Month Fallbrigade
Another local act, Chance Lovett and The Broken Hearted, brought the days dose of soul to the Sunday afternoon.
Victoria’s Astrocolor had the audience grooving to their ambient jazz fused with electronic beats from one half of Victoria’s Righteous Rainbows of Togetherness who added an extra visual element wearing a fur coat and flashy necklace dancing behind his gear. After their set ended one person was overheard saying, “I could have listened to another 30 minutes of that.”
Next up was Fruit Bats lead by Eric Johnson, former guitarist for The Shins.
Former Juno and Polaris prize nominees, The Darcys brought the tempo up with their 80s influenced pop rock.
The most captivating performance performance of the day award had to go to Shane Koyczan and The Short Story Long. Many will remember the poet for the piece he performed at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. It’s rare at a music festival setting to be in an audience and not have people chatting around you. People were that attentive to this set. Rain began to fall towards the end of the set which brought out a fitting rainbow.
Detroit’s Aux 88 traveled for 12 hours to headline Sugar Nightclub Saturday night at Rifflandia. They were a last minute add to the park on Sunday. A crew member we talked to after the festival said that early in the techno bass group’s set under the Rifftop tent that a laptop completely died. They professionally continued on and the crowd barely noticed there was a problem.
“The Metchosin One” Jesse Roper once again dazzled his adoring fans on the Rifflandia main stage despite the downpour of rain that fell a quarter into his set.
Del The Funky Homosapien closed out the Rifftop Tent
Closing the festival this year was Cobble Hill indie rock band Wolf Parade who returned in early 2016 after a five year hiatus. It was also the band’s first performance in Victoria in more than six years.
