Rainer Maria live @ Best Friends Forever, Las Vegas NV (October 13, 2024) [Complete Set]

Rainer Maria is one of the many excellent bands from the 90-00s that unfairly fell through the cracks for me. So much music and so little time. The second wave of emo that arose in the midwest totally passed me by. Or rather, much like a vessel anchored off in deeper waters, the tsunami that passed under me was felt more as a ripple beneath the feet than as a devastating surge hitting the coast. Rainer Maria were right there in the thick of things, either putting on or playing at those famed basement shows from which a scene emerged that would be reverberating a quarter of a century later.
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But I am a believer in the power of introspection. With the benefit of hindsight, at the time I was much more invested in shoegaze, lo-fi indie and their offshoots. My neglect was unintentional and all this music that would be exciting to me years later, decades even, never reached my ears during its initial moment of resonance. But skip to 2017. The release of the album 'S/T' eleven years after their initial run had come to an end finally provided the necessary activation energy for me to give Rainer Maria its proper due. An opportunity to utilize the eraser in the proverbial pencil, to right some wrongs and give the Rainer Maria discography the attention it deserves. The more deliberate sound of their new album a nice counterpoint to the more immediate sound of their younger selves; I've become a big fan of the band.
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When I first heard about Best Friends Forever while looking for any means to see Cap'n Jazz live with my own two eyes, I could scarcely believe a lineup replete with many of the bands in that bucket Wishlist of concerts that I feared I'd never get to experience and which thus resides just barely in my subconscious, accessible but on standby power-saving mode. The lineup was so deep that it's one of the reasons I've included it as the opening sequence in my ongoing BFF posts (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list....
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As anybody that gives a crap about hockey knows, to win the Stanley Cup you need four complementary lines to roll-over, three good D-pairings, solid goaltending, and additional troops ready to step in when the inevitable injuries begin to pile on. Rainer Maria is one of those bands that made this festival one for the ages. That incredible side dish at Thanksgiving dinner that almost transcended everything else equally awesome.
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The band had played a number of shows in 2017 to coincide with the release of their comeback album. Other than this set at BFF, RM last played a single show in 2018. I, for one, am hoping that much like a comet the band keeps periodically reappearing in our lives, perhaps with greater frequency, pretty please? Until then, this will remain the most current RM show in existence and it will have to tide us over for a bit.

Please enjoy this recording; let's jointly cross our fingers until comet Rainer Maria traverses across our night skies again.

#2024 #livemusic #rainermariamusic

https://www.instagram.com/rainermaria...
  / rainermariamusic  
https://www.polyvinylrecords.com/arti...

ps. as always, please support these bands by getting out to see them live when you can, and by picking up their music and merch.

00:00 (an introduction)
00:25 (the band takes the stage)
00:45 Artificial Light
05:10 Planetary
10:38 Broken Radio
14:18 Atlantic
19:32 Breakfast of Champions
24:11 Thought I Was
27:58 Lower Worlds
32:46 Ears Ring
37:37 Tinfoil
43:16 Rise
48:16 (end credits)