Ra Ra Riot Plant 'Orchard' Seeds, Praise Food at Oshega Festival

Posted on Aug 2nd 2010 12:50PM by Dave Jaffer

Chelsea Lauren/WireImage.com

Though most folks at Montreal's Osheaga Festival saw either Metric or Devo perform in the second-last slot of the fest's final day, a minority were on hand to watch Syracuse, NY's Ra Ra Riot make their first-ever appearance at Osheaga, and, almost as quickly, leave.

"We've been here a matter of hours, and we're heading to Ohio in the next hour," cellist Alexandra Lawn told Spinner afterward.

Asked about her favorite part of her band's brief stint at Osheaga, Lawn minced no words: "Easily my favorite catering. The food was unbelievable!"

This was a much commented-upon item over the course of the day, as the artist area, known to some as 'Artist Land,' featured catering by Restaurant Garde-Manger, a standout of Montreal's Old Port.

With a 40-minute set that felt far too much like 20 for devoted fans, most of whom showed up ready to sing, Ra Ra Riot could be forgiven for going heavy with material from their 2008 debut 'The Rhumb Line,' as their sophomore long-player, 'The Orchard,' hasn't been released yet. But it wasn't any bother, as standout tracks from 'The Rhumb Line' like 'Ghost Under Rocks,' 'Can You Tell' and 'Dying Is Fine' were all featured prominently, and performed more than capably.

For her part, Lawn, while not speaking ill of the band's debut release, was excited that a few songs from 'The Orchard' snuck their way into the set.

"We've been practicing the new album quite a bit so we're getting pretty comfortable performing it," she said. "Nothing like we will when we start touring on it, and really settle in, but it's a nice change.

"We've been playing [songs from] 'The Rhumb Line' for quite a while now, and we're really proud of our parts in writing ['The Orchard'], so it's very exciting to put that all out there."

Early on it felt as though the band was rushing through its set, but, after a few songs it was apparent that they were merely doing their damnedest to cram as many songs in as they could, and skimping on chit-chat and any sort of grandstanding.