Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Live Forever is now available on CD and double LP, following its recent digital release. It was captured live over the course of two sold-out summer nights at the Old Town School of Folk Music in bandleader Alynda Segarra’s new home of Chicago. Spanning 14 songs, Live Forever presents their acclaimed 2024 album The Past Is Still Alive in its entirety, as well as a selection of set-defining staples, like “Pa’lante,” “Pyramid Scheme,” and LIFE ON EARTH’s “Precious Cargo” and “Rhododendron.”
Hurray for the Riff Raff's first live album, Live Forever, is now available on CD and double LP, following its digital release in March. Captured over the course of two sold-out nights at the Old Town School of Folk Music in bandleader Alynda Segarra’s new home of Chicago, the collection comprises the entirety of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s 2024 opus, The Past Is Still Alive. Featuring 14 songs, the live album also includes a selection of show-stopping staples: the poetic, ICE-decrying “Precious Cargo” from LIFE ON EARTH; The Navigator’s anthemic, set-closing “Pa’lante”; the prescient digital age critique “Pyramid Scheme”; and a folk-rock rendition of LIFE ON EARTH’s “Rhododendron.” You can get the album and hear it here.
Live Forever coincides with the two-year anniversary of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past Is Still Alive, named one of the Best Albums of the 2020s So Far by Pitchfork, and one of the Best Albums of 2024 by the New York Times, Atlantic, Associated Press, NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, OUT, Mojo, Uncut, and many others. On Monday, March 23, Alynda Segarra followed the digital release with a special performance at NYC’s Riverside Church, celebrating Democracy Now!’s 30th Anniversary along with Angela Davis, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, and more; you can watch the event here.
“I moved to Chicago in September 2024, the year I released The Past Is Still Alive and hit the road with a new band,” said Alynda Segarra (they/them). “Since then, we’ve traveled the world together, becoming family, playing the best shows of my life. Chicago has become home for me, and I feel grateful for the welcome I’ve gotten into the best music scene in the country. I wanted to capture this time and this brilliant band, a moment that won’t last forever. This record is a love letter to the working class musicians out there, we who slug it out on the road against all odds. We deserve so much more from an industry built to exploit us. It’s a thank you to all the fans supporting live music, you who believe songs made by human beings are a vital life force.”
Fronted by Alynda Segarra, Live Forever features the musicians from Hurray for the Riff Raff’s latest touring lineup—Parker Grogan (electric guitar, vocals), Nnamdi Ogbonnaya (bass, backing vocals), Marcus Drake (drums) and Sen Morimoto (saxophone, keyboards), produced by Johnny Wilson. In addition to hundreds of tour dates behind The Past Is Still Alive, they have played the stages of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Austin City Limits, The Kelly Clarkson Show, CBS Saturday Morning, Newport Folk Festival, and beyond, recently sharing bills with everyone from Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman to Ani DiFranco, Bright Eyes, Orville Peck, Soccer Mommy, and The Head and the Heart.
This summer, Hurray for the Riff Raff will headline a series of East Coast shows before playing Green River Festival and joining Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Mavis Staples for Rhiannon Giddens Presents American Tunes: Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, a joyful celebration of songs that connect generations. Details and tickets here.
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