Hooray for Hurray for the Riff Raff

Artist: Hurray for the Riff Raff

Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Venue: Babeville /Asbury Hall

City: Buffalo, NY

Price: $15.00

Seats: General Admission

Genre: New Orleans Folk/Americana

Overview:

Ron and I weren't going to attend this show since I have been spending my weeks up in Owen Sound with my mom who is coping with the trauma of suddenly losing her husband of 54 years. It was good timing that my sister had some time off to spend with my mom so she wasn't alone and we were able to see this show after all.

Hurray for the Riff Raff (HFTRR) is a plain-clothes, non-nonsense folk band from New Orleans. The lead singer, Alynda Lee Segarra hails from New York City but left to ride freight trains across America and landed in her rightful place of Louisiana.

Alynda Lee and her band are proud supporters of LGBT and women's rights and allude to modern day messages of acceptance in their songs.

Their tunes are down-home folk tunes about the South and losing love and human rights.

How I got turned on:

I read about Alynda Lee Segarra’ s murder ballad called "The Body Electric" in Rolling Stone magazine and was immediately hooked on her smoky and penetrating voice. I like to think of her as a young Puerto Rican Joni Mitchell.

Vibe:

This was a great crowd of a few hundred people. As I mentioned earlier, HFTRR are proudly LGBT and the crowd was a lovely mix of young folkies, old folkies and lesbians. During one of her songs a bunch of ladies went to dance in front of the stage and were told to clear out by security. Within a few songs all the ladies (and some gents) were proudly dancing wherever there little hearts desired without any interference. It was so nice to see ladies swinging each other around the dance floor with reckless abandon.

Venue:

Babeville/Asbury Hall is a beautiful church in downtown Buffalo that has been converted into a concert hall. The beautiful arches, stained glass and soaring acoustics make this a fantastic place to see a small, intimate show and the price was great.

Originally the show was scheduled to be in the basement hall called "Babeville" but it was moved upstairs to Asbury Hall due to ticket demand.

Highlights:

Alynda Lee came out to sing The New SF Bay Blues solo to open the show and her voice carried through the converted church like those of an angel.

Once the band came out and the fiddling started everyone started grooving, toe-tapping and waltzing and singing making this crowd one of my favourites.

The set contained all of my favourite tunes, but I was partial to the very last song Ode to John and Yoko. The lyrics and cadence perfectly reflect how a young mother and widow would feel.

Of course The Body Electric soared in this great big room. The Body Electric is a murder ballad that Segarra wrote in response to songs about killing your wife or girlfriend like the old fold tune "Delia". It gives the women's response to ballads that portray violence against women.

My tune recommendations include:

The Body Electric

Little Black Star

I Know It's Wrong (But That's Alright)

Look Out Mama

Blue Ridge Mountain

Be My Baby (cover)

Lowlights:

There was a tiny lighting issue at the beginning of the show that was quickly rectified....I'm pretty sure Segarra was being blinded during the first few tunes, but she still sounded heavenly and sultry and focused.

Sadly, there were a few microphone issues during the last few songs. Although they didn't impact the sound in the hall (save for a tiny bit of feedback), Segarra seemed unimpressed. The band left without an encore, despite our efforts to hoot and holler them back on stage.

I had a huge post-show bathroom chat with the other ladies about the lack of the encore and how it was only 10pm...That’s one of the earliest nights out we've had in a long time!

Tips/Notes: If you go, they have a nice selection of beer and wine but we drank $4.00 Pabst cans all night. We parked around the corner for free and just cut through a parking lot to get to the venue. The bathrooms are located in the basement so we got to see the "Babeville" venue downstairs which would have been way too small for this crowd.

They had chairs set up for a small audience, and a sprinkling of bar tables around the back and side of the venue. I thought the options were ideal for the guests since we could sit, stand, lean or just groove. (I like to groove).

Outfit: Lately I've been all about black....I haven't wanted to "pop" with colour in months. I simply wore a black racer back tank top and a high-low black skirt and flip-flops....it was a beauty night for a show and we didn't need to bring any jackets for the short walk to the car.

Photo:

Here is a shot of Segarra during her solo performance before the band joined her on stage. My photography stinks. I normally only snap one or two pics since I prefer to listen and not mess about with devices.