Ra Ra Riot - The Basement, 9/9

I figured I’d enjoy the Ra Ra Riot show at the Basement Tuesday night just fine. I thought I’d walk away from the show thinking the band’s polite pop songs would result in a pleasant enough experience, but nothing to exclaim about.

Instead, I was completely surprised by Ra Ra Riot’s terrific live show. The Syracuse six-piece transformed the Basement’s stage into a living, breathing organism. All of the band’s inexorable energy existed only to serve the songs, and it created a collective charisma that was impossible to look away from.

Part of that magnetic force was due to cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller, neither of whom ever felt superfluous. Aurally, their gorgeous chamber contributions were not merely flourishes but essential components of nearly every song. Visually, the women anchored each side of the stage, their fluid movements an organic product of the music.

There’s some obvious overlap with Vampire Weekend on Ra Ra Riot’s debut, The Rhumb Line, which came out last month. (The two bands are apparently chummy, too.) Singer Wes Miles even sounds strikingly like VW’s Ezra Koenig at times, especially on “St. Peter’s Day Festival.” But Ra Ra Riot has far surpassed its preppy friends when it comes to a live performance.

Miles proved his smooth tenor wasn’t doctored up in the studio, either. It’s a little more yelpy live, but that didn’t hurt things. I would have liked to hear some of Lawn’s vocal contributions, too, but unfortunately her mic was virtually inaudible the entire night.

It was a well-attended show, especially for a Tuesday night, and the crowd responded especially well to “Ghost Under Rocks,” which Miles said was “the first single.” It was a good tune, but the “single” designation could have gone to any number of the band’s songs. The post-punk drumbeats, Sting-ish bass lines and tastefully sparse guitar ensured each song’s groove was a foot-tapper. The volume and intensity of the drums also gave the live songs more urgency than their album counterparts.

“Oh La,” “Too Too Too Fast” and “Can You Tell” were particularly compelling, as was “Dying Is Fine,” though that one has also felt haunting ever since the band’s original drummer and co-founder, John Ryan Pike, went missing after a party in Rhode Island last summer and was later found dead. The song’s lyrics are mostly taken from the e.e. cummings poem of the same name: “Death, oh baby/You know that dying is fine, but maybe/I wouldn’t like death if death were good.”

Ironically, the most cathartic song of the bunch was one the band didn’t write. The Kate Bush cover “Suspended in Gaffa” got a wonderful string treatment on the chorus, while cymbal crashes punctuated the purging. The song revealed the rare balance that Ra Ra Riot has managed to strike: The band is sincere without being haughty, emotional without being gushy and dramatic without being theatrical.

mp3: Ra Ra Riot - Suspended in Gaffa

(also at The Other Paper)