Ra Ra Riot Concert Preview by Thomas Francis

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Doron Gild

There's a Riot going on.

Details:

Ra Ra Riot, with the Luyas. 7:30

p.m. Monday, March 7, at Culture

Room, 3045 N. Federal Highway,

Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $15.

Click here.

Ra Ra Riot's String Section EmbodiesIts Pastoral EvolutionBy Thomas Francispublished: March 03, 2011

Indie-rock fans aren't used to seeing a cellist sharing

a stage with the drums and guitar. And they're

definitely not used to seeing one who looks like

Alexandra Lawn of Ra Ra Riot.

In the field of sex-symbol cellists, Lawn has no

equal.

Understandably, the subject makes her bashful.

"Yes, I hear guys shout things in between songs,"

Lawn sighs. Professions of love, requests for her

hand in marriage, along with cruder expressions of

admiration.

Of course, these pinings are even more pronounced

online. At least one fan video posted on YouTube

ignores every band member, including lead singer Wes Miles, so that it can focus squarely on Lawn as

she sways her hips and tosses her chocolate-colored

hair while banging out chords on her electric cello.

"It's a little awkward — and weird," says Lawn of her unintended gift for transforming

otherwise repressed indie-rock fans into catcalling construction workers. "I would much

rather they admire me for my music."

Points for the next sly suitor who belts out "Kick-ass cello!" during a midconcert pause.

Truly, it's Lawn's cello together with Rebecca Zeller's violin that separate the Ra Ra Riotsound from its indie-rock cohorts. And on the band's most recent album, The Orchard ,

released last August, those chamber-orchestra instruments assume an even higher profile

than on Ra Ra Riot's debut album, The Rhumb Line.

The Orchard has encountered the usual turbulence that comes with sophomore albums:

lukewarm reception from critics and some fans who say that there aren't as many catchy pop

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/1374



refrains this time around. Of course, Lawn thinks of the band's newest release in much

different terms.

"It was part of our natural evolution as a band, because by the time we recordedThe

Orchard , we had been playing together for a long time," she says.The Rhumb Line was a

moment. The Orchard , says Lawn, is "a culmination."

While the first album was destined to blare from dorm rooms coast to coast and grew an

adoring fan base, The Orchard 's more subdued tone makes it better-suited for sporting

headphones and a reflective, introspective mood.

After all, the record was made while the band was in virtual seclusion at an actual orchard in

upstate New York, not far from the Syracuse University campus where Ra Ra Riot was

founded three and a half years before.

Such pastoral environs are ideal for escaping the pressure that comes with a sophomore

album for a critically acclaimed band. But plucking peaches and mingling with Mennonite

farmers is not a formula conducive to making irresistible pop.

Rather, the songs that came out of the band's time on the farm are tinged by melancholy,

which may have something to do with the absence of John Pike, the original drummer, who

drowned in June 2007 following a concert afterparty in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

Pike had helped craft some of the band's most infectious songs, and it's evident that Ra Ra

Riot wanted to pay tribute to him not just with the occasional lyric but by avoiding any sense

that it was looking for a new member who could do a convincing imitation.

Naturally, the band has had an awkward time finding Pike's replacement. In January, Ra Ra

Riot announced that drummer Gabriel Duquette would be leaving the band. Duquette posteda letter on the band's website thanking the fans and his bandmates, suggesting that the

parting was amicable.

Lawn confirmed this, although she seemed eager to avoid the subject in favor of expressing

optimism about the newest drummer, Kenneth Bernard, whom the members know through

a contact at their record label.

The label was also a conduit through which the band hooked up with Death Cab for Cutie's

Chris Walla. Although the band produced and recorded The Orchard itself, it sent it to Walla

for mixing prior to the album's release. "It really adds a dimension to our sound that we'venever had before," says Lawn of the collaboration.

Yet another new wrinkle is the emergence of a new, part-time singer — Lawn herself

borrowed the lead-vocal role from Miles for an elegant ballad, "You and I Know." In her leap

of faith, Lawn got a boost from Miles.

"When I write songs, I usually don't do the singing, but for that song, I demoed the singing




part," Lawn says. "Wes called me and just said, 'You should sing it.' "

In the 40-minute documentary that Ra Ra Riot made during its time at the orchard, Lawn

admits feeling a bit anxious about singing lead and particularly squeamish about performing

the song live — a prospect that she said required that she "grow the balls."

Judging by the fact that "You and I Know" has been appearing on set lists, Lawn has

managed to grow those, um, balls.

It's brave enough that Lawn play her unwieldy instrument standing up to abide by rock 'n'

roll rules. Anchored to the cello, Lawn has to stay clear of her more mobile bandmates, like

Miles, who has a tendency to bounce around. "I've become better at avoiding collisions,"

Lawn laughs. "But I definitely prefer a bigger stage."

March 7 will mark the first time that she and her fellow Riot-ers have played South Florida,

and Lawn hopes to find the Culture Room stage spacious.

Tireless performers, Ra Ra Riot's Fort Lauderdale show will happen just five weeks after the band played in Vancouver, British Columbia. And after stopping for shows in Tampa and

Orlando, then a junket in the Midwest, the band will fly to Tokyo for a show on April 22.

If it were up to Lawn, the band would also book a show for Iceland. In 2008, Ra Ra Riot

played the Airwave Festival in Reykjavik that Lawn still remembers as the highlight of her

time performing. "We had a great, great day out there," she says. "It's just so beautiful there;

it's special. We played a good show, and the crowd was just amazing."


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Ra Ra Riot Concert Preview by Thomas Francis