Good Old Sleepy Victoria, the home of newly weds and the nearly dead… and these last 2 years, a kick ass music festival. If the Rifflandia Festival has taught me one thing this year, it’s that I forgot how cool festivals can really be. Taking a break from the overwhelming amount of bodies and sweat at this year’s Warped Tour, and Virgin Music Festival has been a treat. Rifflandia had some amazing and well known acts such as Tegan and Sara, Mother Mother, The Most Serene Republic and the Dudes, but what is truly astounding is the quality of the up and coming acts that were present at the Festival. While I was able to see a lot of local music over the weekend, there were three acts that really stood out, Dan Mangan, Analog Bell Service, and the Racoons.

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Dan Mangan live @ Rifflandia from Brent Hodge on Vimeo.

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Dan Mangan: One man…an acoustic guitar…and a voice from heaven. Dan played with a couple of members from Said the Whale, and had girls swooning all over the Element dance floor. There is a reason this man is winning $25000 prizes from XM radio, and touring around the country, Europe and Australia. He destroyed his set at Rifflandia and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing him play again.

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Analog Live @ Rifflandia from Brent Hodge on Vimeo.

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Analog Bell Service: I’ve been blessed to see these guys a number of times, and each time I see them they seem to bring something new to the table. Rifflandia was no exception. It’s interesting how much you can perceive about people just by watching them on stage. One thing you can tell about Analog is that they are all very unique individuals. Watching Colin Cowan, bounding all over the stage stomping and cavorting or pounding his lone drum between heavy bass riffs is a completely different experience to watching Chris Kelly behind the piano or Chris Leitch playing his own rigged up ukulele. Their psychedelic mash-ups and playful lyrics are invigorating and dynamic. Keep your eye on this band. They are going to explode.

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The Racoons live @ Rifflandia from Brent Hodge on Vimeo.

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The Racoons: Where did these little fury animals come from? I have a feeling that while I may be hearing a lot more of these guys, I won’t be having a lot of chances to see them. They were one of the main draw at Market Square on Thursday night, playing live to the world on XM satellite radio. They were featured on MTV’s the Hills this week, and have been opening for Mother Mother recently. They have a pretty large local following and it won’t be long before that turns into a National following.

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Thank you Rifflandia for an awesome weekend, see you next year.

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Videos by Brent Hodge, reviews written by Kristian Hodge

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hey friends, sorry for the not so many videos lately. ive been working day and night on a new episodic show called THE HODGECAST. its taking a similar concept of the World War H live digital show but being put into a video podcast that will be airing on Itunes, Im working with producer/friend Claire Hewson on this project and its going to be something else! We are going to camera in a few weeks, so stay tuned (ituned hehe), ill be getting more videos up shortly.

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Robbie Sinclair- Live at St.Ambroise from Brent Hodge on Vimeo.

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