Defining just what it is that makes one music act stand apart from the other can be nearly impossible, but that “it” is easy to recognize when standing right in front of you, and rising Canadian band Rural Alberta Advantage have plenty of it to display.
Touring on the back of their debut Hometowns, the trio set up across the front of the stage at Schuba’s in Chicago Saturday night and let loose with a live helping of all the pent up emotional momentum that carries the album. The RAA ran through pretty much their full catalogue of songs, displaying emotion and intensity through their folk-leaning nostalgic stories and earnest introspections, with tumultuous rhythmic precisions and expansive synth orchestrations. The band brought the potent combination of energy and earnestness that propelled the entire set.
The band’s emotional pull comes from Nils Edenloff, the band’s chief songwriter, who held court centerstage behind his keyboard, clutching his acoustic guitar, which was held around his shoulder by a simple string. Edenloff’s slightly twanging voice came across with the right touches of confidence and vulnerability, as he sang about his native Edmonton and the surrounding area, occasionally stopping to tell a bit more detail of the stories behind the songs.
With mini-drum kit pulled in line with Edenloff, Paul Banwatt provided most of the combustion powering the sounds. Pounding out the beats with a punk rock ferocity and a dance club precision, he turns the band up and lends the immediacy to Edenloff’s sincerity. Holding down the other end of the stage with her tiny Casio SK1 (just returned to her before the show after being lost in Indianapolis), a floor tom and some chimes, Amy Cole brings a warmth to the affairs. Her harmonies with Edenloff color in his sketches and stretch the sounds free of their introspective bounds.
The songs were played tightly, but the band remained loose. Twice Cole and Banwatt left the stage to allow Edenloff to indulge in the solo acoustic covers he played when they first met at a Toronto open mic. (On this night he made ABBA’s “S.O.S.” tender and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” pensive.) The RAA are certainly a band with open-ended promise and their live show matches all they did while recording their debut.
They’ve got another month of shows on their current tour. Catch them if you can:
Sep 27 – Wexner Center @ Ohio State University – Columbus, Ohio
Sep 29 – Tasty World – Athens, Georgia
Sep 30 – Club Downunder, Florida State University – Tallahassee, Florida
Oct 2 2009 – The Drunken Unicorn – Atlanta, Georgia
Oct 3 – Duke Coffeehouse @ Duke University – Durham, North Carolina
Oct 4 – Rock’N Roll Hotel – Washington, Washington DC
Oct 6 – Garfield Artworks – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Oct 7 – The Bowery Ballroom – New York, New York
Oct 8 – The Middle East Cafe (upstairs) – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Oct 9 – Higher Ground, Showcase Lounge – South Burlington, Vermont
Oct 10 – Iron Horse Music Hall – Northampton, Massachusetts
Oct 11 – Soundlab – Buffalo, New York
Nov 4 – Lee’s Palace – Toronto, Ontario
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