It’s sixteen years since a young Alynda Segarra first arrived in Ireland. Alongside New Orleans-based fellow vagabonds, christened Hurray For The Riff Raff, Segarra charmed crowds at the back room of Cleere’s Pub in Kilkenny and passers-by on the streets of Galway. Segarra, who identifies as non-binary, continues to front the band, which has gone through numerous line-up changes since those early days.
Subsequent visits back to Ireland have seen them play to increasingly larger audiences, and tonight’s show at The Button Factory was sold out within days of the gig being announced. Their last performance in Ireland was two years ago at Whelan’s when they toured the LIFE ON EARTH album, which drilled into American colonialism and other world issues. This time, the focus is on their most recent project, THE PAST IS ALIVE, arguably their finest and most cohesive record, playing out like memoirs from Segarra’s childhood to the present day.
As the band delves into the new record, Segarra's heavily Brooklyn-accented ‘Go Raibh Maith Agat’ greets the crowd, a personal touch that immediately connects with the audience. They express their pride in the latest project, which they promise to feature in its entirety during the show. Segarra, in a previous interview, described the album as ‘an exercise in memory excavation’, a journey that takes the audience through cherished and deeply personal memories.
The opening song, Alibi, a plea to a hopelessly drug-addicted friend, sets the scene for the fifteen-song full-on show from Segarra and their four-piece backing band. Happier childhood memories are recalled in Snakeplant, and other stand-out selections from the recent album include Hawkmoon, Vetiver and Colossus of Roads. This year celebrates the tenth anniversary of their album SMALL TOWN HEROES. Segarra includes The Body Electric from that album, describing it as a game-changing song that directed their songwriting in a more philosophical direction. Also dipping into their back catalogue is a driving delivery of Rhododendron from LIFE ON EARTH and also from that album, Saga, which Segarra explains was written at a time when they were locked into an abusive relationship (‘I don’t want this to be the saga of my life / I just want to be free’). The mid-tempo Hourglass finds Segarra taking a breather and performing the song seated centre stage on a stool, before closing the set with gorgeous deliveries of The World Is Dangerous and, appropriately, with the closing song from the new album, Ogallala.
Of course, there is more to come, and they close out with a two-song encore. Acknowledging the ongoing support they have received in Ireland for the past sixteen years, Look Out Mama (‘I haven’t played this song in over a year’) is performed acoustically before a roof-raising finale of Segarra’s manifesto and, by now, anthem, Pal’ante. It’s a fitting end to a triumphant return to Dublin by an artist previously described by us at Lonesome Highway some years ago as ‘a young Patti Smith’. That characterisation becomes more and more authentic with each subsequent stage appearance and studio recording.
By way of a footnote, thumbs up to promoters Singular Artists, who, together with the more prominent acts that they promote, continue to support lesser-known roots-based music at affordable prices. Anyone fortunate enough to have attended tonight would have forked out less than the price of three pints in any of the local pubs in Temple Bar, or, indeed, tonight’s venue.
Review and photo by Declan Culliton