Sausagefest or Rifflandia?

You wouldn't know it by this week's weather, but we are on the slow slide into fall. With that, we get fewer festivals, mega-shows, and concert series (and maybe that's a good thing, because baby, it's been quite the whirlwind of opportunities these last couple months!) But this weekend you can choose to stay in town for Redhook Brewery's Sausagefest, complete with great local bands, or you can head to beautiful Victoria, B.C. for their giant 4-day festival, Rifflandia.

The Rifflandia lineup is a bit of a conundrum.The juxtaposition of Big Boi and Courtney Love is a head scratcher in and of itself, but then there are a huge number of bands I've never heard of at all. I will chalk it up to this being in Canada, and a lot of them are probably Canadian bands. Passes are pretty comparable to Bumbershoot (or a bit more), but there is this one cool option: a 2-day pass to the acoustic lounge for just $23, proceeds of which benefit the nonprofit War Child. I feel like a lot of festivals could do stuff like that more often.

Or, sleep in on Saturday and roll out of bed by 3pm for the Sausagefest over at Redhook Brewery in Woodinville. For $10 you can catch Beat Connection and Big Eyes (in addition to Fly Moon Royalty, My Goodness, Grizzled Mighty, and The Pynnacles), while noshing on offerings from their meat-centric food menu and guzzling ESB after ESB. You can purchase tickets here.

Summary: The trek to Victoria may not be justifiable to see the bands at the 4-day-long Rifflandia Music Festival, but they do have a cool 2-day acoustic lounge pass for $23, with proceeds going to nonprofit War Child. If I were you, I'd stay in town and dine on sausages while listening to great bands at the Redhook Brewery Sausagefest on Saturday.