Live review: Hurray For the Riff Raff deliver transporting tunes at the Button Factory

Stepping onto the Button Factory stage on Friday, Hurray For the Riff Raff only needed to play a couple of chords from their song ‘Alibi’ to transport the audience far away from Dublin.

A bluesy electric guitar riff, a gentle rhythmic section on the drums and the buttery smooth voice of singer Alynda Segarra, and you were in the back of a train, looking out to the passing landscapes of the Appalachian mountains.

Before the beginning of this voyage, the show opened with a highly unique act from Chicago-born multi-instrumentalist NNAMDÏ and his mix of ethereal and heavy sounds, experimental in his exploration of pop, r’n’b and hip-hop styles.

NNAMDI Supporting Hurray For The Riff Raff at Button Factory Dublin by Jason Doherty

One of the first things you notice when seeing Hurray and the Riff Raff is the masterful instrumentalists’ capacity to blend in the background without ever disappearing, instead letting their singer shine as boldly as their talent calls for.

“We’ve got a new record out,” Segarra announced after a few songs, a delighted lightness in their tone, “and tonight we’re gonna play the whole damn thing!”

Out since February, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s latest record The Past is Still Alive marks a return to a traditional, Americana style for the band, after the release of their 2022 Life On Earth and their experimentation with electronic beats.

Hurray For The Riff Raff at Button Factory Dublin by Jason Doherty

The Past is Still Alive is a comeback to the rural, blues and folk sounds that made the band’s career. In the live setting, it's raw, dusky and gentle like a cool morning breeze.

Hurray for the Riff Raff have an impressive capacity to go from soft, naturalistic sounds on songs like ‘Dynamo’, to a crepuscular feel on the likes of 'Snake Plant’ and ‘Saga’. One moment, you’re lying on fresh linen on a sunny morning – only to be hit by a wave of uncontainable sorrow on the next track.

Listening to Segarra’s silky vocal performance and the way it mixes itself with the sound of their folk guitar to become one, you can't shake off the feeling that they were born to be a blues singer, transporting the audience through the horizon of never-ending American roads.

Hurray For The Riff Raff Live at Button Factory Dublin by Jason Doherty

In a moment that felt solemn enough to change the atmosphere of the room, the band took a step back to let their singer stand alone at the front of the stage and begin their song ‘The Body Electric’. The ten year old tune about folk music’s tendency to normalise gender-based violence has lost nothing of its relevance, and incited a sombre focus from the audience as Segarra sang: “He's gonna shoot me down, put my body in the river, like an old sad song, you heard it all before.”

Coming close to the end of their set, Segarra announced a “romantic one”, before playing a version of the waltzy ‘The World is Dangerous’ illuminated by the Button Factory’s silver disco-ball lights and mesmerising the audience in the process.

Hurray For The Riff Raff at Button Factory Dublin by Jason Doherty

After an enthusiastic call for an encore, the band walked back to perform the track ‘Pa’lante’, described by Segarra as “a prayer. I wrote it for my ancestors,” they continued, “and since then it’s had a life of its own.”

Finishing the set on this highly emotional note, Hurray and the Riff Raff and their soft take on Americana left many at the Button Factory dreaming of bright blue Southern skies and long train rides to a far away land.