As I descended down the carpeted stairs into the depths of the Doug Fir, local Portland three-piece aan had already begun the opening set of the evening. A healthy sized crowd turned up early to nibble on the experimental, layered indie pop appetizers that aan offered. My eye was immediate drawn to aan leader Bud Wilson’s guitar—a uniquely thick, old-school hollow body acoustic electric, with shapely f cuts. While my eyes feasted/flirted with Wilson’s guitar, my ears enjoyed Wilson’s voice, a warble that recalls lead Cold War Kid Nathan Willett. As aan's set continued—song after song speckled with pithy, plucky reverb—Wilson’s veins looked as though they were plotting a jailbreak from his neck. Before finishing their performance, aan apexed with “Heart Is An Ocean,” a snarky jam with rhythmic change-ups, and with Wilson singing, “I promise to love you, so long as it’s convenient for me.”
When second opener Lord Huron took the stage, they immediately took flight, offering a country/folk/pop jam with calypso underpinnings. The drummer wasted no time putting the bongos to work as the singer smiled and danced his way around the stage in between trips to the microphone for lyrical bursts. The bassist even added an occasional touch of theremin. From the start, Lord Huron set a raucous, yet wholesome mood and proved that nobody else in Portland was having more fun than the performers on-stage. With an abrupt shift, the band's second song pushed a booming thunderclap over the speakers, which then gave way to the sound of rain and gently lapping water. The drummer picked up a washboard, a skittering guitar riff began, and just like that we were on a Cajun reggae sea adventure, chock full of dancing, smiling, and the band's flawlessly fun execution. Lord Huron's final song “We Went Wilde” started with a cheeky, neutral guitar riff, but soon thereafter exploded, the singer finally putting his lost looking floor tom and cymbal to use, unleashing a drumming assault as he and the band crescendoed into a wall of sound, complete with hand claps and grins. When the set ended, I knew I'd be hitting the merch booth after the show and bathing my ears in Lord Huron's catalog on the ride home.
Like Lord Huron, Rural Alberta Advantage have a somewhat unique stage set-up. They stand in a straight line across the front of the stage, like a group of linemen. Perhaps they feel the need to protect the songs? The band came out swinging with the lovelorn and moody “Luciana” from 2008’s Hometowns, as Nils Edenloff’s one-of-a-kind treble-y wail uttered “Oh Lord, is it what we really want?” The song is a rocker, made somewhat rockier by Paul Banwatt attacking his drum kit with a mighty force.
Each song rolled into the next with minimal pause and between-song banter. Before blasting into a new song “Tornado ‘87,” Edenloff explained that the song is about a tornado that took place during his childhood in Edmonton. It’s a serious and thematically dark ditty, blanketing your ears with haunting “Ooohs” courtesy of keyboardist/xylophonist Amy Cole.
A few songs later, Banwatt and Cole abandoned the stage, leaving Edenloff and his guitar to perform an acoustic cover of Survivor's “Eye Of The Tiger.” The crowd was nostalgically pleased, and as the cheers and applause faded after the song, Edenloff chuckled and confessed, “This band started playing open mic nights doing that sort of song.”
Banwatt and Cole then returned, with Banwatt’s drum thumps opening “The Ballad of the RAA.” Edenloff voice started in, and Cole appeared visibly exuberant, bubbling over with excitement as she jumped up and down, waiting to offer her pounding xylophone.
“Stamp” closed the set, with Cole unleashing more haunting background vocals, and Banwatt attacking the drums like his life depended on it. The last 40 seconds of the song were like lightning, and the stage seemed to smolder with the closing notes. After the band's thank yous and small bows, the crowd immediately cheered for an encore. After a short pause, they returned with Edenloff humbly expressing more thanks to the crowd. The encore treat was 2/4 new, 2/4 old, ending with “Dethbridge In Lethbridge,” a jam that Edenloff called “a song about a town in Alberta.” Twenty songs: four songs short of the band's total catalog. Those are pretty good odds.
Though considered a folky outfit, the RAA sure do play with focus, intensity, and urgency, as if there’s an egg timer ticking in their brains, and they have to get through the next song before it goes off and their time is up.
Set list:
Luciana
Muscle Relaxants
Rush Apart
Don’t Haunt This Place
Tornado ‘87
Two Lovers
The Breakup
Eye Of The Tiger (Survivor Cover)
The Ballad of the RAA
Four Night Rider
Edmonton
Under The Knife
In The Summertime
Frank, AB
The Deadroads
Stamp
Encore:
North Star
Drain The Blood
Barnes’ Yard
The Deathbridge In Lethbridge
