Souvenirs by Rainbow Danger Club is out now (released June 1, 2013). 

Saw them play their last show on Saturday in Shanghai. They are at great, great band. It was a double set - acoustic then electric - bookending a set of all-new material from Duck Fight Goose (which we sat outside in the little garden and listened from afar). The acoustic set featured more of their newer material from the Into the Cellar EP and re-worked for Souvenirs. From memory, they included “Summer’s End,” “The Country Way” and “Once Upon A Time/The Other Side of Forever.” Lead singer Jesse even broke out the musical saw for one acoustic impro session. I’m looking forward to listening for it on Souvenirs. I’ve also seen Sigur Rós in concert, so a musical saw was not as much a revelation as it was to some of the audience members, but it’s always cool to see it in action during an indie rock show. 

One of the neatest things, as a self-described RDC superfan, is to see the ways songs evolve over time with a band that has played together for a relatively long period of time. RDC has been together since the end of 2009 and released their first EP, The New Atlantis a year later. While songs like “Neighbors on the Rooftops” and “Drown the Creatures” have endured in the band’s setlist pretty much unchanged, others have been constantly workshopped on stage. 2012’s Live in Shanghai EP featured a track called T.O.S.O.F. It disappeared from the band’s subsequent releases and I can’t say for their live shows in Shanghai and the US, but on Saturday, the first song in the acoustic set was a re-working of T.O.S.O.F. (which stands for The Other Side of Forever), now called “Once Upon A Time.” It was many times that night I felt like the band had come full circle. 

I might write a longer thing about the rest of the show and my feelings about the band, but to quickly summarize, the electric set was a consummately professional and engaging performance of Rainbow Danger Club’s greatest hits and fan favourites. I managed to restrain my fangirlish glee enough during “Neighbors on the Rooftops” to get a pretty good video of the whole song. You can only faintly hear me singing in the background, during the first 30 seconds before I figured out to turn my iPhone microphone in the opposite direction of my singalong. Highlights included a drum showcase from Michael Ford, who is departing Shanghai imminently. Saturday night’s show is the last, for the foreseeable future, for the band in it’s current incarnation. Another was an all-out blues jam on stage with RDC turning into a session band for bassist Nichols’ dad Chuck, who pretty much brought the house down with a rendition of “Hoochie Coochie Man.” Side note, who knew Jesse was such an accomplished blues guitarist? Side note two, it always warms my high school jazz band raised heart to see a trumpet player with a plunger mute on stage. 

Rainbow Danger Club closed out their electric set with the audience singing along to “Drown the Creatures,” and then the fans wouldn’t let them leave the stage. Someone grabbed a drumstick and began banging on the floor tom, demanding endless encores, which the band obliged first with Where Maps End closer “Babies Grow On Trees,” then a proggy impro jam, then both Two-Headed Boy and King of Carrot Flowers (both part one). Jesse does a mean Jeff Mangum impression, although if we’re being honest here, I would listen to an off-key donkey braying along to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and probably deem it genius.

Exeunt Rainbow Danger Club. They’ll play some sort of final final show on June 22 at a goodbye party for RDC lead singer/guitarist Jesse and Shanghai recording guru and musician Adam Gaensler. You will all be missed.