New Orleans indie folk favorites Hurray for the Riff Raff headlined to Mobile on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, for a CD release party at the Alabama Music Box celebrating “My Dearest Darkest Neighbor,” joined by two of Nashville’s buzzed-about young bands, Promised Land Sound and Banditos.
A band on the rise
The release show capped a breakout stretch for Hurray for the Riff Raff, the group led by singer-songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra. The band had just signed to ATO Records — the label co-founded by Dave Matthews — and turned heads that summer with a widely praised performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
Bands interviewing bands
Instead of the usual round of press interviews ahead of the show, the three acts took a playful approach: they interviewed each other. The questionnaires traded between Segarra and her Nashville counterparts ran from hypothetical eating contests to desert-island scenarios, offering fans a loose, unscripted introduction to all three groups before they shared a bill.
For Mobile’s music scene, the night paired one of the Gulf Coast’s most closely watched touring acts with a hometown venue known for booking national independents — and gave local listeners an early look at two Nashville bands on their way up.