By contributing writer Samir Mathur (Twitter)
Syracuse’s Ra Ra Riot are one of those bands that I’ve heard
of for many a year, but never really listened to. They’ve got that lightweight,
fun, percussion-driven indie rock sound that was everywhere a few years ago
(see also The Bravery, Under The Influence Of Giants, Tokyo Police Club), but
get extra points for having a violin and a cello in the mix. Despite having put
out their third album earlier this year, all the members of the band look about
20 years old, and their energy plays well in the packed house. Entirely catchy
recent single ‘Dance With Me’ gets the biggest reaction on the night, and I’m
sure they made some new fans. (I had a photo pass for Ra Ra Riot's set, so after the jump, a few shots I took of them).
The backstory ensures that the headlining set is more than
just your average midweek indie show. The Postal Service released ‘Give Up’ a
decade ago, toured for a couple of months, and then basically called it a day.
The album went on to become the second-biggest seller in Sub Pop Records
history (behind only ‘Bleach’),
and this year, to commemorate the album’s 10 year anniversary, the band
announced a deluxe reissue, and this tour. Tickets for this show – the band’s only
Florida date – sold out instantly, and before the show my friend Ben couldn’t
believe he was about to see a band he’d been listening to for his entire adult
life, while another guy said “Dude, I was 9 when this album first came out” and
makes us all feel old.
It’s no surprise, then, that as the scattering electronic
beats start up and Ben Gibbard utters those first three words – “Smeared.
Black. Ink.” – everyone loses their damn minds. Gibbard looks a lot more
animated than I’d expected, while his bandmate Jimmy Tamborello stands behind a
platform, controlling the music (or playing Minesweeper?) on a couple of
laptops. Also on this tour, the band is augmented by indie-rock royalty Laura
Burhenn (whose own band, Mynabirds, are well worth checking out), and Rilo
Kiley’s Jenny Lewis; plus a stage and lights setup that reminded me of Baz
Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby’.
‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’ gets everyone on board
at once, but it’s ‘We Will Become Silhouettes’ that gets them all going. Live,
the song is colossal. The audience
sings along, Gibbard plays a drum kit, and everything is blissful. Later, he
and Lewis flirt playfully during ‘Nothing Better’, a song which, like every
other song, is rapturously received. With such a limited catalog from which to
draw songs, they had to run through the entire album, plus a couple of b-sides,
and a cover (‘Our Secret’ by Beat Happening), and the audience reaction throughout is as
if this were a greatest hits set. And
that’s for the best, because, well, a couple of those songs aren’t that great –
tunes that are largely carried by instrumentation rather than vocals, like ‘This
Place Is A Prison’ and an especially formless ‘Natural Anthem’ didn’t really
work for me in the live setting.
But the highs outweigh the lows. ‘Clark Gable’ gets everyone
dancing, while ‘Such Great Heights’ unsurprisingly gets everyone waving. And
Ben Gibbard seemed genuinely humbled and stoked that what began as a side
project over ten years ago still carries such importance for so many people.
I’ll admit that in college, I didn’t much care for The
Postal Service, largely because (a) everyone else was head-over-heels for them
and I was a contrarian snob; (b) I felt that ‘Neon Golden’ by The Notwist checked
all the same boxes but was far less appreciated; and (c) ‘Garden State’. My
stance has softened on them, obviously, over the last few years because (a) I’m
less of a snob than I was in college; (b) a few of their songs are genuinely
great; and (c) Ben Gibbard seems like a nice enough sort, who has a good sense of humor about
himself. (If you haven’t seen the Tom Scharpling-directed Postal
Service Auditions Tape, you should do that). The show was better than I had anticipated, the addition of the extra musicians gave the sound a lot more
dynamism and fullness than I’d expected, and ultimately, even for a curmudgeon like
me, it was hard to begrudge Gibbard and Tamborello this victory lap.
RA RA RIOT
