Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine<\/p>\n
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Review by Kate Poe<\/p>\n
Last Tuesday night at the Roadrunner, Rainbow Kitten Surprise delivered a highly anticipated and electric performance, featuring a lively mix of new songs and old classics, energetic movement, and a guitar solo off a beer bottle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rainbow Kitten Surprise, affectionately shortened to RKS, is well known for their poignant lyrics and indie alternative sound dominated by eclectic rhythms, often featuring unexpected tempo shifts and vast, genre-blending instrumentation. The band\u2019s new album, <\/span>Love Hate Music Box<\/span><\/i>, takes on a more pop feel than their old tracks. While the band’s discography ranges from acoustic and intimate to full bodied, their lyrics remain consistently compelling and profound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before the release of <\/span>Love Hate Music Box<\/span><\/i>, the future of RKS seemed uncertain. The band exchanged their extensive seven week 2023 tour, canceled almost one year ago, for a modest eight date show series. Fans seemed eager to savor this opportunity to see RKS after a quiet year, and the venue was packed well before the show started on Tuesday night. <\/span> <\/p>\n He reminded the audience early on to drink water, citing heat emergencies from the night before, and event staff passed water bottles back into the crowd. Tasch played a short but optimistic tune titled \u201cPresent,\u201d saying, \u201cThat\u2019s my happy song, does anyone want a depressing one?\u201d The crowd cheered. But during \u201cGood News,\u201d Tasch stopped quickly after fans alerted via phone flashlights of a person in the pit needing medical assistance.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite the (pun intended) hold up, he continued the set and wrapped up with a delightfully plucky song, “Come Onn,\u201d that featured Tasch on harmonica. When I spoke with Tasch after the show, he identified this closing song as his favorite.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe harmonica comes out and everybody knows what\u2019s up, right away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tasch has a headline tour coming up in June, and though he isn\u2019t stopping in Boston, he cheerfully invited fans to take the train down to New York or DC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Around 9:15, the lights dimmed and the geometric Rainbow Kitten Surprise logo lit up the room, suspended above the stage. The crowd roared as the band entered to a low electronic beat. Ela Melo, the lead singer, stunned in a pink tulle skirt with black bows in her long blonde hair. She placed herself in the center of the stage, with the rest of the band (Darrick \u201cBozzy\u201d Keller on guitar and vocals, Ethan Goodpaster on electric guitar, and Jess Haney on drums) forming a semicircle around her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n RKS announced back in March that they would be playing a different setlist every night with a mix of new tracks and old classics. The band opened with \u201cFever Pitch\u201d from their 2018 album <\/span>How to: Love, Friend, Freefall <\/span><\/i>before moving onto older songs. The colorful lights matched the abrupt rhythms of the song and the audience knew every word. Melo jumped as the music and lights cut as if she vanished from the stage entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n RKS\u2019s performance simply captivated the audience. Ela Melo\u2019s voice had an impressive range, switching from resonant tones to higher registers in a beat, and the live show only broadened her emotional and expressive range. Her eclectic and fervent dancing complemented the unique and iconic timbre of her voice, which included jumping, spinning, kicking, and floorwork after falling to her knees, completely entranced. The performance was perfectly feminine, eccentric, and syncopated\u2013perfectly Rainbow Kitten Surprise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After \u201cDrop Stop Roll,\u201d Melo thanked the audience for being there, saying it has been a crazy last few years and that it is good to celebrate something \u201ccommunal.\u201d She described <\/span>Love Hate Music Box<\/span><\/i> not as a \u201cconsumer opportunity,\u201d but instead as a culmination of six years of \u201chard work for us to bear our souls for you.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The crowd bellowed along to RKS classics like \u201cCocaine Jesus,\u201d \u201cDevil Like Me,\u201d and \u201cGoodnight Chicago.\u201d But as the band transitioned to newer songs, the pop sound from the new album felt a bit restrained. The instrumentation shifted from staccato-driven and emotive to a sleek and guarded routine. Despite this, the crowd was equally as pleased; any RKS is great RKS, and the band delivered each song with the same infectious high-energy effort.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The rest of the band complimented Melo\u2019s energy. Darrick Keller ventured often to the center of the stage to duet with the lead singer, and drummer Jess Haney beamed a smile that could be seen from the box office throughout quite literally every single song. During the penultimate song, \u201cRun\u201d from <\/span>RKS<\/span><\/i> the album, Ethan Goodpaster ventured to the front of the stage to rip on his electric guitar with a Budweiser bottle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ela Melo joked about how the band was going to leave, and we all are going to cheer, and that they\u2019ll be right back for the encore. Like most of their music, it was refreshingly honest, and sure enough, the band came back after a minute or so of chanting and cheering. During \u201cBearwalk,\u201d the heat struck again; the song had to be stopped and restarted due to another medical emergency in the pit. The band wrapped up with their top song on Spotify, \u201cIt\u2019s Called: Freefall,\u201d and the room reverberated every word in a devotional chorus. For those in the crowd who waited years to see RKS, like myself, the performance was (pun intended) all that and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine Review by Kate Poe Last Tuesday night at the Roadrunner, Rainbow Kitten Surprise delivered a highly anticipated and electric performance, featuring a lively mix of new songs and old classics, energetic movement, and a guitar solo off a beer bottle.\u00a0 Rainbow Kitten Surprise, affectionately shortened to RKS, is well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22960,"featured_media":41653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525,1523,15],"tags":[33,1954,97,327,47,1953,406,1926,374],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41654,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41652\/revisions\/41654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/span>The night opened with indie folk artist Ethan Tasch, who delivered a pleasant and groovy set. According to Tasch, this was the largest room he\u2019s ever played. He opened with \u201cHold Up,\u201d his most streamed song on Spotify. Between songs, Tasch was conversational and quiet, much like his music. He told the crowd how he thrifted his belt that day and how the last venue he played was a library. His voice is soft and angelic, dipping into expressive, deep notes.<\/span><\/p>\n