No Age, Ra Ra Riot, more in concert.
By turboman 3 Comments
So my college held a little music festival that featured many different styles and genre's from rap to folk/jazz, but I was pleased that there was an emphasis on hiring indy talent from around the nation. This included two major acts that probably would tour around the Virginia area(Ra Ra Riot), and an act that I thought would never play a show in Virginia(No Age). Being a small time festival, there was a lot of stuff that I've never really heard of before, but they were pleasant surprises. There were also a handful of crap local bands, but I'll skip over that stuff.
Howlin' Rain
I don't have to tell you how found I am of good ol' blues rock music. I'm fine with it not really being innovative anymore, as long as you can rock, it sounds good to me. None of the songs really stood out to me, but I can tell you that this band of old dudes can jam pretty hard. From what I've heard on their albums, their CD's are not as good as their performance. I believe that these guys are from Nashville, but I could be wrong.
Ra Ra Riot
To be honest, I thought that Ra Ra Riot had no chance of impressing me after headlining their stage after amazing performances from Howlin' Rain and No Age, but they managed to hold their own. Their performance was fairly well paced, considering that they played at 11:50, and everyone in the room was tired. Live, they came across as sounding very familiar with Vampire Weekend's first CD, which isn't a bad thing at all. I can't really say that I'm a fan of their work in particular, but there certainly is potential for them in the long run.
No Age
Ok, second thought, it was a terrible mistake to put Ra Ra Riot after No Age. No offense to them, it's just that you can't have a group filled with violins and pretty vocals after a band who puts together such an intense performance. They put no attention into being technical, showing of anyones vocal capabilities, or to try and appeal to someone who is outside(Dean repeatedly told some of the people who were along the walls to "quit fucking staring at me motionless", and if anyone wasn't into it to "get out and listen to some reggae bullshit"). It's that kind of attitude mixing with the pure chaos that they create on stage that gets across a crowd of people. I don't know if there were many people there that have followed No Age like I have(I know that there were a few), but they won over a fairly large sized audience last night. They played three or four new songs, and they all sounded solid too.