One thing I really missed out on writing about in January was the night I headed over to Piano's (map) to see The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band I'd never heard of before outside of a recommendation by Fred Wilson. There are several reasons why this was an awesome night:
- The RAA are awesome - I went from never listening to them to listening to them almost exclusively for the last month (check out Edmonton and The Ballad of RAA posted over on Tumblr by Fred Wilson)
- Piano's was a great place to see live music. I went there at 10PM on a Tuesday, saw a pretty interesting opener The Loom that I'd also never heard of, and then a great show by The RAA. The small room was packed to the edges, but it wasn't so bad. The crowd is there for the music, which is something you just can't say anymore about the crowds at Webster Hall etc., and even when you're in the back you really aren't very far from the stage. Pianos is the kind of place I want to see more bands at, and spend more time at. It's nights like these that make me love music again.
- I actually ended up getting to meet Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist / New York & new music evangelist who's reading I've been absorbing diligently for the last few years. I wasn't the only one who ended up at the concert because of him, but he was happy to meet everyone - and a lot of us ended up trading stories about the concert the next day right on his blog.
You can check out a few more videos I took of Rural Alberta Advantage over on YouTube.
