When I woke up on July 6, I had never heard of Toronto trio The Rural Alberta Advantage. By the time I went to bed that night, they were one of my favorite bands. An amazing set at the Sunset Tavern – easily one of my top ten shows of this year – helped cement that status. The group, playing to a crowd that was enormous by Monday night standards, offered up little back stories to most of the songs off of their newly-released “Hometowns” LP, then closed their main set by walking out onto the floor for an intimate, unplugged performance of a “Goodnight Song.” When an encore was demanded, frontman Nils Edenloff surprised and delighted the audience with a solo acoustic version of Eye of the Tiger before the rest of the band came out for another tune. It was all smiles in the Sunset by the time bar tabs were settled and people started filing out.
© 2009 Brittney
