-- The New Orleans-based
continued to prove themselves as major players in modern country, blues and folk at Workplay in Birmingham Wednesday night, with singer/songwriter
Alynda Lee Segarra's
unexpected stranglehold on southern culture and truth through tender and idealistic tunes that made the Alabama crowd swoon.
Opening the show were Nashville-based rockers
, dripping with soul and charisma thanks to frontwoman Alanna Quinn-Broadus, who does not know what "shy" means, which is good for a Birmingham crowd. Hurray for the Riff Raff's Alynda Lee Segarra would later deadpan during her set about Quinn-Broadus, "She's teaching me about stage presence."
This actually marked their first time playing in the city. Other members include Jared Colby (guitar), Gabriel Golden (bass), Matt Snow (drums), Kirk Donovan (trumpet) and Diego Vasquez (trombone).
Show openers Alanna Royale, fronted by Alanna Quinn-Broadus above, perform at Workplay on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. (Ben Flanagan/al.com)
"None of y'all have ever heard of our band, have you?" Quinn-Broadus bluntly asked the unsure crowd before she reassured them she didn't expect them to and rocked the room nonetheless.
After one or two numbers, she thanked the Bottletree ownership for attempting to book them for a while and said they'd come back soon to rock that venue, but their mission was the Workplay at that moment.
"Wednesday night in Birmingham is the place to be!" Quinn-Broadus continued in between numbers before admitting to to the Birmingham natives, "We're going to judge you by your pizza." Later in the set, she asks asks "Is Rocky's gonna suck?"
After ripping through a pumped-up set full of originals like "18," "Go," "True Fool" and "Animal," accented perfectly by the two-man horn section, Quinn-Broadus told the crowd she wasn't worried about fitting in a little further south than home based on Alabama's experience.
"I know Birmingham loves a chubby white soul singer," Quinn-Broadus said, referencing the city's own Paul Janeway of St. Paul and The Broken Bones.
Alanna Royale plugged their new album "Achilles," available on vinyl in the lobby, and made way for Hurray for the Riff Raff, returning to the Workplay stage for the first time since opening for Shovels & Rope.
As usual, Segarra stepped out on stage alone with a guitar to open the show with "The New SF Bay Blues," a soothing track from the band's latest album "Small Town Heroes," from which most of the set was built.
She then invited the rest of the talented band -- Yosi Pearlstein (fiddle), Casey McAllister (organ, keyboards), Ross Gallagher (bass) and David Jamison (drummer) -- to launch into the Appalachian ditty "Blue Ridge Mountain" before transitioning into their Cajun instrumental number introducing members of the band, highlighted by Pearlstein's superb fiddling.
Segarra joked about improving her stage presence with the nod to Alanna Royale, but she has plenty. She carries a calm confidence, anchoring the set as she flows from one song to the next and explains the meaning of each to her before playing.
They then belted the title track from her previous album "Look Out Mama," a fast-paced crowd-pleaser showcasing Segarra's vocal range and the general positivity the band generates to keep its audiences in a collective good mood.
They'd perform other Riff Raff standards like "Slow Walk," "I Know It's Wrong, But That's All Right," "Crash ont he Highway" and "End of the Line." But the ones that particularly stuck out were the heartbreaker "Levon's Dream" and the subversive anti-murder ballad "The Body Electric," which brought the room to a standstill.
While Segarra's music is often political and opinionated, she never gets in the faces of her listeners. While vocal about her personal beliefs, the sound remains as pleasant as any true southern music you hear lately. It has manners but manages to gut-punch you with its tenderness and truth.
Segarra closed the set with a cover of Lucinda Williams' song "People Talkin'." She said she once met Williams, who told her "People from Bronx and Louisiana have lots in common."
New Orleans folk and blues band Hurray for the Riff Raff performs at Workplay in Birmingham, along with openers Alanna Royale, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. (Ben Flanagan/al.com)
The start the encore, Segarra and McAllister returned to the stage to play her latest album's gorgeous and seemingly deeply personal title track, "Small Town Heroes" before ending the show with the rip-roaring "Little Black Star," featuring Pearlstein and Cutler dancing a bit of a jig to help the crowd with the beat.
This Puerto Rican Yankee from the Bronx gets country, folk, blues and all-out southern culture better than most of the natives, making their latest album "Small Town Heroes" essential listening in 2014.
If they happen by your way again anytime soon, show that regional hospitality we're known for, and they'll return the favor with some of today's best music period. Y'all come back now.
See photos of the show in the gallery above.