Hey, remember when I said that The Rural Alberta Advantage was back? Man, did they ever prove me right at The Sinclair this past Saturday night. Packing the 500+ capacity venue in a sold out show, the Canadians warmed everyone up from the frigid cold outside with an intimate session to wrap up the North American leg of their tour for their latest work Mended With Gold. And they somehow managed to also literally raise the roof at the same time. It made for quite the night and, in all honesty, one of the better shows I’ve been to this whole year.
Fellow denizens of Toronto, July Talk, started the night off with a proverbial bang. You probably couldn’t pick a band that had the opposite character of The RAA. Hitting the ground hard with a sleek and polished sound that drew more from traditional hard rock and blues rock elements like heavy pounding power chords, the more sophisticated music fan could complain it to be a bit too simple musically. The hipster could complain it to be way too approachable and lacking any real lyrical depth. But, the average show-goer just looking to have a good time would probably have a ball with this band as they bobbed along to songs like “Summer Dress”.
Though, I will admit in a completely objective fashion that July Talk’s live show depends greatly on the on-stage swagger and chemistry between the singers Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay. On paper, it’s a match that really shouldn’t work with the deep and smoky vocals of Dreimanis somehow matched with the light and almost absurdly girly vocals of Fay. But, the two make up for it with a commanding stage presence that got downright sexual at times with Leah holding a mic in her crotch and pulling Peter’s face to sing into it at one point. Urging the crowd to literally “raise the roof” (complete with hands pushing up in the air) for The RAA, July Talk did its job admirably of warming the crowd up for the act to come.
The Rural Alberta Advantage did absolutely nothing to hide how different they were from their opening act. While July Talk bolstered their energetic live show with a stage setup that featured an amp with a huge running fan blowing toward the crowd underneath it for some reason, The RAA went with a more minimalist, almost session-esque setup with the drums to the right of the stage rather than in the back. In hindsight, it was a very smart decision for the trio as it managed to encapsulate all the members and bring all of them to the forefront. Making sure to thank their Canadian compatriots and asking the crowd to once again “raise the roof” before jumping into “Don’t Haunt This Place”, The RAA managed to bring the entire room to attention.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing The Rural Alberta Advantage live, I would probably make the lofty comparison to watching a thunderstorm as a child. Drummer Paul Banwatt would be the lightning, wowing the audience with flashes of extreme technical prowess. Vocalist/guitarist Nils Edenloff would be the thunder, bringing the gravitas and grounding the audience with his approachable but emotionally heavy lyrics. And keyboardist/vocalist Amy Cole would be the rain that wraps it all together and brings life to the audience. This metaphor came to life when the band played “Tornado ’87”, warning the audience beforehand that an actual tornado was known to follow them playing this number.
One of the really remarkable aspects of this show that stood out to me was in fact the audience themselves. As Nils went into the backstory of coming up with the idea for “To Be Scared” by traveling to a friend’s cabin in the woods and fearing that he was in an 80’s slasher flick, it wasn’t the actual story that the audience was concerned of but the location of the cabin. Saying that the room must be full of Canadians or just people who know geography, it definitely showed that the audience was completely on the same page as the band, which so rarely happens at shows like these. When The RAA followed up with “Terrified”, Amy Cole successfully led the audience in “whoo”-ing along at the appropriate moments for all of the song. And when they played “Frank, AB”, it felt like the entire crowd sang along for all of it. I can’t stress enough how rare it is for me personally to see something like that at a show this size.
When The Rural Alberta Advantage came out for their encore, they somehow managed to save the best for last. Nils started it off with a solo performance of “Two Lovers”, asking the audience to hug their loved ones close and induced the kind of cheesy raising of some actual lighters. Despite awkwardly forgetting the lyrics halfway through, Nils managed to recover and finish the song as the rest of the band came back out for one more before closing the entire show out with an absurd decision to collectively jump into the middle of the crowd and perform “Good Night” completely unmicced. But somehow it worked out majestically because of the perfect storm that The RAA managed to cultivate in The Sinclair that night before letting everyone take a much-deserved rest.