July 2, 2008
The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Artel, Kingston, 16 February 2008
photo taken at the Gladstone by Marc Hodges.
Hey everyone. I hope you all had a smashing Canada Day. To celebrate I’m going to give a quick shout out to a great, Canadian band, The Rural Alberta Advantage, who shared the bill with Entire Cities at The Artel. Going into this show I had a passing familiarity with The RAA – I’d heard a song or two – but hadn’t investigated them in any serious way. Man, I was missing out. They are top-to-bottom amazing on record and live. The RAA feature powerful lyrics & delivery by Nils Edenloff; flawless, frenetic drumming by Paul Banwatt (who was pulling a double-shift as he played with EC earlier); and sublime backing vocals and killer glock work by Amy Cole. They kept up an amazing pace, blasting through the better part of the stellar album Hometowns. The album is dark and sweet and evocative and very very wonderful. They don’t look to be on tour at the moment but be sure to catch them if you have the chance. As usual, here are a few songs from their set in february. Enjoy.
The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Artel, Kingston, 16 February 2008
Do yourself a huge favour and pick up Hometowns, it may be your favourite album of 2008. It is undoubtedly gonna be one of mine.
B(oot)log 
Jen P. said,
July 3, 2008 at 1:23 am
They are awesome, eh? Thanks for the post!
Ronatron said,
July 3, 2008 at 2:04 am
Is that a Glockensphiel I hear in “The Ballad of The RAA.” If it is, than very good use of the instrument.
rgsc said,
July 3, 2008 at 8:35 am
Jen P – you are most welcome. they are awesome. soooooo awesome. i really haven’t been able to get enough of them.
Ronatron – it is a glockenspiel — it is in the baby blue case in the photo. It is tiny and toy-like but holy smokes does Cole every give it a working over on “The Ballad…”
Oh and i forgot to mention in my post, Amy Cole and Paul Banwatt of RAA have another project called “We’re Scared” which fans of RAA should definitely check out:
http://www.myspace.com/werescared
and you should read this interview with them from Wavelength last summer
http://www.wavelengthtoronto.com/?q=node/2414
dnl said,
March 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm
http://listsplans.tumblr.com/post/75184559/rural-alberta-advantage-the-artel-kingston-on
Jenn said,
April 7, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Is there any way you have a bootleg of the goodnight song?
rgsc said,
April 7, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Hey Jenn – sure do. I’ll send it to you.
The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Artel, Kingston, 16 February 2008 (full set) « B(oot)log said,
August 5, 2009 at 2:24 pm
[…] who are only getting more and more notice. I first posted about them in July of 2008. Here’s what I said previously: Hey everyone. I hope you all had a smashing Canada Day. To celebrate I’m going to give a […]