It had been more than 900 days since Syracusans Ra Ra Riot hit the road — an unfortunate streak broken last week by a short run of headline gigs across the Northeast. This past Friday (May 3) marked the band’s first Boston show in nearly five years with a triumphant headline set at Royale. Armed with bedazzled strings and rock-pop sensibilities, the seven-piece band barely missed a beat to deliver a near-flawless set blending nostalgia with hints of what may be to come.
In an echo of their 2018 anniversary tour, Ra Ra Riot dedicated just shy of half of their set to playing through the entirety of their debut 2008 LP The Rhumb Line. The band ripped through cult classic tracks — from To Kill a Mockingbird-inspired “Each Year” to Gloucester-shoutout “St Peter’s Day Festival” to their cover of Kate Bush’s “Suspended in Gaffa” — without taking a beat, only pausing for lead vocalist Wes Miles to conclude with “and that was our first record.”
Ra Ra Riot continued to tear through their back catalogue, including from their most recent full-length release, 2019’s Superbloom. The only sign that this was a band shaking rust off came when they claimed their mulligan to start over on the infectious “Every Time I’m Ready to Hug”; Miles took the chance to explain that “we took a job away from a computer and gave it to a person,” leaving a drum machine unemployed but hundreds of folks cheering in support.
So overwhelming was the crowd reaction to the show that the band could barely get through their obligatory thank yous before the “last song”, the 2015 single “Water” (which may be familiar from its ubiquity on 2010s alternative/indie radio and in ads for faucets); in fact, earlier in the evening, an informal crowd survey revealed at least a healthy handful of proud attendees who had seen Ra Ra Riot dozens of times. Even as the ephemeral final notes of “I Need Your Light,” the actual, real last song of the night, faded and venue staff ushered attendees towards the doors, the energy and joy spilled out onto Tremont Street and carried into the still-young night (after all, the show did end at 9:30 p.m. due to the venue’s live music curfew).
Joining Ra Ra Riot were Los Angeles’s Low Hum, who have been very busy since we last mentioned them a few weeks back. The band jumped right into opening this East Coast leg of the Redivivus Tour after a run of shows on the West Coast with Melt; frontman Collin Desha told Vanyaland after the show that compared to the smaller club venues they were playing with Melt, “it’s really kind of fun to be on these bigger stages with Ra Ra Riot” for the week.
“We’re definitely […] kind of earning new fans, if that makes any sense,” Desha continued. “It’s fun, kind of breaking people in and getting the word out.” He likely gained a few fans with the set, which expanded on Low Hum’s studio sound with a simple yet impressive live band setup that added an oomph to Desha’s lo-fi releases. The band also created an entire multisensory experience with their performance, thanks to a massive LED screen with ever-changing Windows-screensaver-reminiscent color backgrounds that matched the ebbs and flows of the music. With upcoming album Terra Incognita due out via Last Gang Records on May 24, Low Hum will hopefully bring a full set to Boston before the end of 2024, and may even find some familiar faces in the crowd from Friday’s show.
As for Ra Ra Riot, they finished their headline run with a show at Brooklyn Steel on Saturday (May 4), and are now looking ahead to opening up for Vampire Weekend for some Midwest dates in July and August. But as they mentioned on Friday, where they performed recent single “The Wish,” this hopefully is not the last we’ll see of the band — surely they’ll take the truck up to Boston again now that the crew’s back together.
All photos by Molly McCaul for Vanyaland.