The interesting avenue of chamber pop and indie rock will echo off the walls of WOW Hall tomorrow night when upstate New York phenomenon Ra Ra Riot comes to Eugene.
Ra Ra Riot’s Tuesday night show is a chance to see the easily likeable band that has been ever-fascinating since it emerged on the music scene five years ago.
Born out of house parties and small venues on the Syracuse University campus in 2006, Ra Ra Riot’s chamber pop core inside an indie-rock exterior brought instant success for the band.
With Wes Miles on vocals, the band mixes the relatively traditional range of guitar (Milo Bonacci), bass (Mathieu Santos), drums (Kenny Bernard) and keyboard with the chamber instruments of violin (Rebecca Zeller) and cello (Alexandra Lawn).
The band’s setup is most similar to Arcade Fire, which was one of the first bands to reach commercial success using a chamber pop approach. The smoother harmonies and stronger string approach of Ra Ra Riot, highlighted by Miles’ softer, fresher vocals places the band in a more refined category. At its most indie, Ra Ra Riot can sound like Passion Pit; while at its most historical and natural, it can elicit comparisons to The Smiths. The band’s sound in general, however, is something altogether unique.
Since its creation, Ra Ra Riot has been a band that has avidly shared its music live. The band is well-known for its devotion to touring, while they have shown up at major music festivals like Sasquatch!, Coachella and Lollapalooza.
After taking a little time off for the holidays, the band is starting 2011 in similar fashion.
“It’s been good; we just played our first show of 2011, so there hasn’t been much of 2011 and Ra Ra Riot,” Lawn said. “We’re on a West Coast tour right now and we’re going to really cool places.”
The tour started in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall last Friday and will end in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Jan. 29. Aside from Eugene, Ra Ra Riot will also make stops in Portland to play the Hawthorne Theatre and Seattle to play Neumos.
“It’s always nice to get out of where you are,” Lawn said. “It’s always a pleasure; it’s different than a lot of places on the East Coast, in terms of people and obviously the geography.”
Most of the music featured will be from Ra Ra Riot’s September release, “The Orchard.” The album is the band’s second release with Barsuk Records and is the follow-up to the well-received 2008 debut release, “The Rhumb Line.” Ra Ra Riot wrote most of the songs for “The Orchard” on an actual orchard owned by family friends of guitarist Milo Bonacci.
The result is an album that expands on Ra Ra Riot’s still relatively young sound.
Coming a long way from a college campus in 2006, Ra Ra Riot will play tomorrow night at WOW Hall. The New Orleans duo Pepper Rabbit and the folkie summer sounds of Givers open up for Ra Ra Riot, starting at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
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