Vieux Farka Touré with Alpha Yaya Diallo

Black Lips at Studio 919 on Sunday. rock that doesn't apologize.

dune rats at studio 919, saturday. rock band, former wicket hall venue.

Fruit Bats at Capital Ballroom, Saturday. Rock band, formerly a nightclub, Victoria.

Free live music every night inside one of Victoria's most gorgeous rooms, in the old Bank of British Columbia, until 1am.

Order The Volcano (it's on fire), book the karaoke room, and accept that tonight is going to be a story.

Seven nights of live Celtic fiddle, the largest Irish whiskey list in Canada, and 1am doors on Bastion Square.

Cash-only, peanut shells on the floor, bras stapled to the ceiling: Victoria's most beloved dive bar open until 2am.

Twenty-nine craft taps, a late kitchen with a following and a historic brick courtyard open till midnight every night in Victoria.

A coal baron built a 39-room sandstone castle, died before moving in, and accidentally created Victoria's best self-guided date.

A woolly mammoth, a walkable old BC town you can actually wander through, and a First Peoples gallery that'll stop you cold.

A 1890s Fernwood church turned theatre so intimate the actors skip the mics, and the pubs are right outside.

More than 85 hand-built dioramas inside the Empress, featuring one of the world's largest model railways and zero self-consciousness.

A candlelit, scented journey through the afterlife with 250 real ancient artifacts, at Victoria's Royal BC Museum.

Victoria's 1913 grand hall still fits 1,400 seats under an ornate ceiling and a wildly varied bill worth dressing for.