Live Review: Ra Ra Riot and Jukebox The Ghost @ Union Hall [12.01.07]

Two-sixths of Ra Ra Riot are in what amounts to the front row, watching opener Jukebox The Ghost. A girl whispers to a guy, it doesn't really matter who, the guy laughs at, well, it's hard to tell what, and they are the picture of a young band in love with their lifestyle and quite possibly each other. Jukebox The Ghost has their feet tapping to what might sound like Ben Folds Five circa 1996, fired through the lens of liberal arts education, musical theater and our nation's capital. There is something special happening here and it's not just the music. It's one band, killing itself in front of a crowd who mostly didn't come to see them, and it's parts of another band paying their respects in the front row; basking in the glow of being 22 years-old and a headliner - the only thing keeping more of your people out of this room is the city-imposed fire code. Both are equal parts becoming, just at different places on the trail.

Jukebox The Ghost comports itself well. They seem to wander in places, a little too chatty on stage, but, then again, they're not un-charming and their asides aren't irritating. At one point, someone yells, "Play music" and the band quickly agrees. The nameless heckler is either their good friend or a complete asshole. Jukebox doesn't seem rattled and they preface one of the tracks with an astounding amount of information dealing with God, the destruction of earth, and futuristic space travel. It's a three-part song, they say, and in practice, it's got to be close nine-minutes long. They make sure to close the night with "Good Day," which has an ending rollicking enough to make people remember your band - whether or not you played a three-part opus about space travel in the middle.

Ra Ra Riot takes the stage with the gravitas of people playing to their friends, close acquaintances, and already converted supporters. If there is a single person in the room who hasn't heard their music, it might be shocking. Further, if there is a single person who hasn't heard their music, that person or those people are about to be leveled. Ra Ra Riot is pleasant on recording but they are positively electric in person. Somehow you can't put front man Wes Miles on mp3 and have him stay there until he pops up in your iTunes - he just doesn't fit. And it's not just a singer. This band, their bassist with his loping on-stage maneuvers, their charming string section and a guitarist and drummer who look like they permanently stuck in the best part of the day, and Wes Miles - these six people just won't fit in your stereo. Your iPod is woefully tiny for a band like this. And if you're not going to come see them live, you might not get it.

Union Hall is one of the venues where if you're not in the first three rows, you can't see shit. This means that roughly three-quarters of the 92 people in the room can't tell what's going on. Luckily, Miles, soars above the heads and puts his hand against the ceiling. He communicates in a million not verbal ways and almost all of them are overly dramatic. He mimes crying in some songs and pounds his chest in others. The bassist and guitarist lean against each other like two mutually dependent parts and somehow through all of this the band is moving the whole floor in a place where the back of the room is built to make you feel disenfranchised. There is something pouring from the stage besides sound.

The band closes with the song that contains the phrase that appears first on their website, "the dying is fine." Forget death for a minute, it's a beautiful image to depart with. If the dying is fine, it's only because this show has been so fucking alive. So for a quick encore, they play Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love." It ripples the concrete floor and vibrates the empty PBR cans sitting on the bar at the back of the room. And, like that, it's over. Like the whispered joke with which we began, from girl to guy, lips almost touching ear, we'll end with something shared and smiles from front to back.

[Photo by Andy Cotteril, courtesy of Myspace]