Hips were shaking and hands were in the air, as local band Ra Ra Riot played on Saturday at Funk ‘N Waffles.

After playing CMJ Music Marathon, touring in New York City and Boston, and recording a new EP, Ra Ra Riot returned to Syracuse where the band was met with a packed venue.

‘I saw Ra Ra Riot a lot last year when they first started at house parties and places like that,’ said Amanda Hamel, a fifth year industrial design major. ‘It’s really nice to have them back in Syracuse after being gone for awhile.’

Formed in January 2006, Ra Ra Riot, made up of six former Syracuse University students, quickly became a local favorite, and is now garnering more and more attention.

‘I love Ra Ra Riot because their music is so different,’ said Raquel Benito, a junior aerospace engineering major. ‘You don’t hear this type of music often. I think it’s cute that they’re a coed band, too; you don’t see that often either.’

With Funk ‘N Waffles jammed full of people eating and bobbing their heads to funk classics, the show opened with New York City’s Vampire Weekend, who got the crowd to their feet with 45 minutes of genre-blending, catchy songs. The crowd danced away to the addictive pop hooks and punk-infused rhythms.

Next came another local Syracuse band, The Sister Lovers, who kept the crowd energized with power-pop songs, heavy on keyboard bridges and drum-driven choruses.

Still, the audience grew anxious as Ra Ra Riot set up and crowded the stage, eager for the show to start. After the band’s warm-up soundtrack, MC Hammer’s ‘Can’t Touch This,’ played over the speaker system, Ra Ra Riot started performing.

Ra Ra Riot’s set started out with a bang, as its frenzied melodies got the crowd moving wildly and clapping their hands along with the beat. The band played three songs in a row, only taking the time to introduce itself briefly before launching into another dance party-inducing song.

Singer Wesley Miles introduced the song ‘Anthony,’ to be included on their upcoming EP, which is tentatively scheduled to be released March 14. The song drew cheers from the audience, who recognized it as one of the songs from the band’s MySpace page. The song featured spoken-word interludes and a powerful outro from the string section.

Ra Ra Riot played more songs off its upcoming EP, including ‘Dying Is Fine,’ whose toe-tapping tempo reenergized the crowd and induced frenzied clapping during the chorus.

After the energetic, eight-song set, the band played an unusually down-tempo song for an encore, with a Nintendo-esque synthesizer interlude that the audience seemed to enjoy.

‘I saw Ra Ra Riot twice last year, and I swear each time I see them they get twice as good,’ said Alex Culombe, a sophomore architecture major. ‘It’s tough to put them in a genre, but they have excellent stage presence, and the strings are an excellent addition to the band.’

Miles announced to the crowd that the band would be back in Syracuse on March 21, to play a show in the Schine Underground. Ra Ra Riot is also slated to play the South by Southwest music festival in March and then head to London for a week of shows in April.

Published on February 17, 2007 at 12:00 pm