Last Friday, I had the pleasure of checking out a lineup of fantastic bands at Red Palace on H Street: local band heroes Ra Ra Rasputin, Brooklyn’s Chappo, and more local natives, Dance for the Dying.

I hadn’t seen Ra Ra Rasputin live before but I called a giant Red Palace dance party and that’s what the night became. Right off the bat, Patrick Kigongo reminded us that this show would be their last show for the next four months as the band will be taking a mini-hiatus to write some new music for everyone and that it would soon be their 5-year anniversary as a band. The crowd knew they were gonna get a pretty great show from the band.

Ra Ra Rasputin played a short setlist coming in at seven songs, including one encore (that Chappo came onto the stage and joined them for). The set were tracks off of their 2010 self-titled album Ra Ra Rasputin, the latest Forward, and a Kraftwerk cover of Computer Love, though the crowd kept yelling for a Joy Division cover but they didn’t get it. Seven songs sounds incredibly short but with song breakdowns, guitar riffs, killer synths, and bangin’ drums it was like time stood still for the crowd, who felt as if they could be dancing forever. Speaking of dancing forever, lead vocalist Brock Boss is just that…a boss. He might have been the hardest man for me to photograph (in a good way) only because he’s such a dancing machine. He probably could give Thom Yorke a run for his money.

Dance for the Dying and Chappo were great openers for the night. Dance-Rock band Dance for the Dying were up first, starting the dance party for the crowd. They were a pleasant surprise with a great collective of instruments, wonderful vocals from M.C. Wolfe, and those synchronized hand-claps! I enjoyed it and the crowd certainly did too. Did you know they have a couple of tracks on Rockband? Very rad.

Brooklyn’s Chappo brought the glitz-rock to life with their fierce Native-America-inspired-feather outfits. In addition to that, they had a sparkle gun, a mini megaphone, and loads of confetti…Red Palace was marked by the presence of Chappo. It really felt like New Years when it was all sang and done. The presentation didn’t make-up for anything in the live-music department as Alex Chappo and the rest of the boys played a crazy fun set. I was very happy to hear Bodies Coasting amongst the other tracks off of their latest Plastique Universe II: Pisces Princess, as well as Plastique Universe. I’ll also mention Alex Chappo getting into the crowd and showing off his trapeze skills by hanging and swinging off of the Red Palace ceiling during one of the songs.

I’m very excited to hear what Ra Ra Rasputin puts out next…so until then, we’ll wait patiently for the good times ahead.

Check out photos from the show below as well as video of Chappo’s Bodies Coasting and Ra Ra Rasputin’s Forward.

Dance for the Dying

Chappo

Ra Ra Rasputin

(due to really crappy audio quality on the recording below, the actually Forward mp3 was incorporated into the video)