Alynda Segarra, aka Hurray For The Riff Raff, hasn’t graced Australian stages since 2017. So a visit was well and truly due, and on a warm Wednesday night at the Triffid we were finally obliged.

First up though is supporting act Annie-Rose Maloney. Annie-Rose plays acoustic guitar and is accompanied by Jess Ellwood on lead guitar and harmony vocals. Though they have very little officially released music at this stage, the duo look comfortable on stage and play lovely minimal country-folk songs. I daresay it won’t be the last time we see Annie-Rose up here in Brisbane. 

Then it is time for Hurray For The Riff Raff, in classic rock fourpiece mode. They enter the stage without much fuss and plough into the set. There are eight Hurray For The Riff Raff albums, but tonight the set is made up almost entirely on this year’s The Past Is Still Alive. It is an extraordinary record, an extended reflection on Alynda’s youth of running, seeking, and mixing with other characters as desperate as themself. As they sing in Snakeplant, “They don’t even really know my name / I’m so happy we escaped from where we came”.

It’s a fascinating album, not so much nostalgic as a therapeutic working through of the past. If the audience was hoping for clues about the subject matter though, we didn’t get much. There were very few words between songs, and nothing very revealing. We were left to interpret the lyrics ourselves, as many of us probably already have been.

The band couldn’t quite replicate the delicate country-tinged arrangements of the album either, the end result a bit more of a rocking out. Which is ok - rocking out can be a cathartic experience too, and they are good songs after all. But dedicated listeners have followed Segarra through their journey of exploring their Puerto Rican heritage on The Navigator, broader lyrical and sonic palettes on Life On Earth, and most recently the deep excavation of the past on The Past Is Still Alive. I for one was longing for something a little more intimate, more sense of connection with this person who I am by now so familiar with.

Maybe, of course, Alynda feels like they have already shared enough with strangers in the songs themselves, which is fair enough. They are brilliant songs, whether on record or on stage. They finish with this album’s epic closer in Ogallala and come back for an encore with The Navigator’s even more epic finale Pa’lante. “Onwards, forwards” it translates as, and like so many of Alynda’s songs it is about movement, about pushing through the struggles of life towards a destination. The band left the stage and headed off to the next tour stop, and the audience headed home on what was a schoolnight after all. But we are blessed to have songwriters like Alynda Segarra who delve into the depths of experience, to make songs not just to entertain but to inspire. 

Words and Photo by Andy Paine