Earlier this week, I had one of those moments that all rock music fans covet. I was out at a venue reviewing one band and stumbled across another act on the bill that really caught my attention. I was out at The Social in Orlando checking out The Drowning Men, who were great in their own right (see the review here) when I had the pleasure of catching the dynamic eight piece River City Extension.
The octet out of New Jersey crammed onto the small stage and delivered an energetic and diverse set that I would best classify as a creative merging of Mumford and Sons and Gogol Bordello! It might sound unusual, but they pull it off magnificently. Over the course of the night, the six men and two women traded off among fifteen different instruments, providing quite the aural feast. At different times, they featured two drummers, two banjo players, violin, trumpet, mandolin and more; a welcome diversion from much of the cookie cutter stuff dominating the airwaves these days.
Led by front man Joe Michelini, the band focused their set on music from their excellent new release Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Your Anger. I spoke to Michelini briefly after the set and asked him how he would classify their brand of rock. There's no easy classification, which is part of the beauty to their unique sound. We settled on Alt-Americana, but you can check out the link below and make your own judgment.
They kicked off the show with "Glastonbury," the opening track off of the album and followed that up with nine other cuts from the new album as well as a few selections from their two prior releases.
"Welcome to Pittsburgh" was an early highlight. The track has a beautiful, optimistic feel to it, as Michelini shows off his broad vocal range. The most impressive features of the song were Nicole Scorsone on violin and Dan Melius on trumpet! The violin absolutely powers the song and Melius also contributes some fantastic trumpet work. Good stuff!
"Point of Surrender" and "Ballad of Oregon" were two other songs of the same vein that were crowd-pleasing favorites.
This band is quite diverse and they showed off their versatility all night. Other highlights included "Slander," a poignant tune in the vein of classic rock, "Our New Intelligence" a nice boy/girl duet, and the stark "Standing Outside in a Southern Riot" which featured Michelini and vocalist Samantha Tacon alone on stage.
It was a great introduction to a talented band that we should be hearing much more from in the years ahead.
Thanks for checking them out. They're a unique sound for sure, but there's definitely a place for them in today's market.