Rural Alberta Advantage Become Hometown Heroes

The opening lyrics on The Rural Alberta Advantage's debut full-length, Hometowns, are looking more portentous by the day: "We invariably left the prairies."

"The Ballad Of The RAA," the track that line is taken from, is the trio's unofficial theme song, and it aptly sums up the their current trajectory. It feels like The RAA's success is inevitable.

Hometowns was generally overlooked when it was released in 2008, but a growing demand for The RAA's music — spurred by nothing more, it would seem, than the band's nose-to-the-grindstone determination — was enough to prompt a re-release on Saddle Creek. Demand for The RAA in their present hometown was high enough that the three-piece easily sold out Lee's Palace weeks in advance of this show — not an easy feat.

Openers Fox Jaws were as entertaining in person as they are on disc. Singer Carleigh Aikins' voice is absolutely deadly. If afforded a little more volume, the Barrie five-piece would have no trouble holding down a headlining spot.

Bahamas' (a.k.a. Toronto's Afie Jurvanen) second-up slot was a bit of a head-scratcher. Putting a solo performer (he did have a drummer with him for this appearance) after a rock act to warm up the crowd for the headlining rock act, is definitely a momentum-shifting maneuver.

Jurvanen recognized this himself, almost immediately. Ten seconds into his gentle first song, with crowd noise clearly overpowering him, he shouted "Screw this" and called his drummer up so they could skip forward to the louder portion of their set.

Jurvanen repeatedly insulted the crowd and bragged about his awesomeness, which was precisely what was needed. His set would have flopped if he weren't such an amusing and assaholic dude. He closed with a cover of Prince's "Purple Rain" and had half the bar singing along with him. People seemed genuinely disappointed when he had to give up the stage to The RAA.

The Rural Alberta Advantage didn't start their set with "The Ballad Of The RAA," but they really hit a stride when they hauled it out as their third song. By the time they made it to "Drain The Blood" half an hour later, there were more bobbing heads in the crowd than you'd expect to see at a Los Campesinos! show.

Aside from a pause to cover "Maybe Tomorrow," the theme from The Littlest Hobo, The RAA were pure energy from start to finish. Expect a lot more sold out shows in their future.