Hurray for the Riff Raff, at Skully’s Music Diner

The normal conversation around concert ticket prices is that they’re too expensive, for good reason. Dynamic pricing, scalpers and endless festivals don’t leave much left in some concert’s cases. At Skully’s Music Diner on Tuesday, I had the opposite experience. I paid way too little to see NNAMDÏ and Hurray for the Riff Raff.

Thanks to Used Kids Records, just under $19 gifted me an evening seeing two acts worthy of headlining on their own. Supporting Alynda Segarra’s Hurray for the Riff Raff was Chicago-based DIY rock, indie, electronic, hip-hop, and whatever he wants to do artist Nnamdi Ogbonnaya.

Playing a dual role on Segarra’s East Coast tour of solo opening act and bassist in Hurray for the Riff Raff, NNAMDÏ stepped onto the stage alone. Wearing a white jumpsuit and goggles on top of his head, NNAMDÏ spent 30 minutes introducing his music to a group mostly hearing him for the first time.

I’m late to the game, first hearing NNAMDÏ on his 2022 “Please Have a Seat” LP, which half of the 10-song set featured. Opening with “Ready to Run” and “Touchdown,” NNAMDÏ first addressed the crowd. Asking if anyone ever wakes up feeling crazy, a feeling he assures the crowd he has daily. Leading into his latest single “Going Crazy.”

As a multi-instrumentalist who shares videos online where he makes drum tracks behind some of the more entertaining videos you’ll see across the social media abyss, NNAMDÏ stuck to guitar during his set. That’s when he wasn’t singing alone over the backing music he creates.

The further into the set, the more the crowd hears NNAMDÏ’s range. With “My Life,” NNAMDÏ adds guitar riffs to his already booming lyrical work. Then it slows down with “Glass Casket,” including a chorus that grabs your attention.

“I wish I was a farmer / I wish a was an astronaut / So I could feed my family / And then take them somewhere very far away.”

With two songs left, NNAMDÏ went into “Sudafed,” about both him and a Chicago Transit Authority train breaking down. Including added emphasis from the recorded version, which came out in 2023 as a bonus track on the “Please Have a Seat” deluxe edition.

On the album version, it’s a smoothly sung track, including the line “I yelled ‘fuck you, get out of my face’ then I apologized like immediately.” In-person, the listener didn’t need to use their imagination on what it would’ve sounded like in real life. That’s because NNAMDÏ screamed it, with passion. Cue another guitar solo.

Before NNAMDÏ’s final song, he asked the crew to shut off all the lights. Then a surge of bass ran through the audience. Quickly moving from the bottom of my feet, through my ears and the top of my head. It drove “It’s OK” off the stage and directly into the crowd.

It’s a song featuring seven different lines. Repeating “There’s no need to pretend / You’re okay if you’re not.” The set left me wanting much more from the DIY artist, but so is the role of an opener.

Then, the night belonged to Hurray for the Riff Raff. Segarra led a three-person supporting band onto the stage, clad in black. Each member of the supporting band wearing black shirts with a handful of studs attached. Segarra wearing a black, studded, vest with “Colossus” on the back, above a scorpion.

What followed was a 15-song set with Segarra’s songwriting as the main attraction. It didn’t require a stage show. Hurray for the Riff Raff played through their Feb. 23, 2024 “The Past Is Still Alive” album, all 10 tracks, and sprinkling in tracks from across their 14 years of album releases.

It began with the first three songs on their latest album, in the same order. All great songs, but it was “Hawkmoon” that I was waiting to hear. There’s a moment in the song, a blip on the radar compared to all the album brings to the listener. It comes in after the second line of the song.

“In the bus I sleep all day / In the back I am.” Segarra follows it with a light “uhh-ah huh.” A sound that starts in the mouth but ends with a small push of a release. It’s inconsequential but a part of the album I look forward to, and wanted to hear live. Segarra didn’t disappoint.

That’s only the beginning of the song.

The chorus of the song shows the indie/alt country feel of the songs have lyrics that can damage you. “Well it’s a hawkmoon / And it’s just begun to rise / Here’s a silver spoon / So you can gouge out both your eyes.”

“Hawkmoon” is one of many tracks of “The Past Is Still Alive” Segarra uses to talk through life experiences. That track specifically talking about the first trans person they met, and her indelible impact on Segarra. A moment shifting their view on gender and what’s “normal.”

After “Hawkmoon” was the one of two tracks played from their 2022 “LIFE ON EARTH” release, “RHODODENDRON.” It’s a song that wouldn’t necessarily fit on “The Past Is Still Alive.” More melodic and featuring a yelling Segarra when the track hits its title.

Shifts away from the new album were short-lived, with two-thirds of the set coming from the February release. Segarra’s LP stretches across the spectrum of experiences lived in the past two years. It was written after the unexpected death of their father. On top of that, Hurray for the Riff Raff uses the songs to process the deaths of friends, due to drugs.

“Snake Plant” exemplifies the album. Segarra starts it talking about wanting to be a good daughter, and later including a lyric that sounds more like a specific callout to whoever’s listening. “Tattoo with a needle and thread / Most of our old friends are dead / So, test your drugs, remember Narcan / There’s a war on the people, what don’t you understand?”

On tour, Segarra teamed up with Columbus-based company This Must Be the Place on the tour to hand out Narcan (Naloxone) to treat overdose emergencies.

Between songs, Segarra wasn’t long on conversation. There were the normal “thank you”s to the people in attendance, while they switched between three acoustic guitars. They did introduce “The Body Electric,” from 2014 release “Small Town Heroes.” Segarra sounded surprised to hear themselves saying it hit 10 years old, adding that’s if you believe in linear time.

Also, how the song still applied in 2024. A track about ignoring gun violence, acting like everything’s ok, as people are killed. The commentary on how things are going mostly stayed in songs as Segarra played through the rest of “The Past Is Still Alive,” until a two-song encore.

After returning to the stage, Hurray for the Riff Raff went into its lone cover of the night, the Pixies “Wave of Mutilation.” The night ended, as did Segarra’s guitar playing, with “Pa’Lante” from 2017 LP “Navigator.”

“Pa’Lante” is something of a ballad, talking about the expectations to make your own way, forget everyone around you and the frustration of surviving when the odds are stacked against you. Repeating lines ending in “be something!” from Segarra.

The song ends with Segarra calling out specific friends and family, telling them to “¡Pa’lante!” In other words, don’t slow down. Keep going. Before Segarra reached that point, Segarra pulled out a piece of paper, reading a poem.

It focused on the pain and death in Palestine, talking about a child in Gaza whose father is never coming home. In the noise of the music, with a keyboard player joining the now five-person band for the last song, the entire words of the poem couldn’t completely be made out, but considering the theme of the song, context filled in the gaps.

Segarra finished off “Pa’Lante,” ending their set. A concert worth much more than $19.