RVA Shows You Must See This Week: April 1 – April 7
FEATURED SHOW
Friday, April 3, 5 PM
Richmond Resistance Exhibition Opening, feat. Heavy Friends, Painted World, Rikki Rakki, Daniel D, Sleepy Joe’s Distortion Unit @ Gallery 5 – Free!
Generally speaking, Richmond has gone down in history as a city of repression, authoritarianism, and overwhelming prejudice. From the high-traffic public markets in enslaved people during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to the Massive Resistance and annexation campaigns of the Civil Rights era, this city has seen a ton of racist hatred reflected in its own public policy. This is not to mention the fact that it was the capital of the Confederacy! And yet, for anyone who has grown up in this city’s DIY underground over the past 75 years or so, it’s plain to see that there’s a whole separate history of left-wing activism that has been fighting for freedom and justice within Richmond the entire time. From mutual aid work and LGBTQ activism to artistic protest movements and the destruction of Civil War monuments, those who have wanted a better Richmond more reflective of equitable ideals and human-centered values have worked on a variety of levels to make this city a better place.
There have been some successes over the years, and quite a few setbacks as well, but as someone who lived here three decades ago, I can definitely tell you that a lot has improved around the city. That being said, gentrification has also become rampant, and as one of those first-wave white queer gentrifiers (a status I’m stuck in regardless of how I feel about it), I definitely feel a little queasy at where things are in this city right now. Fortunately, the struggle continues, and the Richmond Resistance show that is coming to Gallery 5 starting this First Friday night will showcase this city’s history in all its beautiful, frustrating duality.
It’ll also bring quite a bit of great music to the stage as well! Featuring a mixture of newcomers and more familiar acts, all of which are local, this evening will be crammed full of amazing sounds. Rikki Rakki are surely the most familiar name, their twangy, passionate brand of indie rock full of singalong tunes and emotional crescendos. Painted World is becoming a well-known name locally; led by David Long (Knifing Around, Shawnis And The Shimmers), this band’s take on hook-laden power-pop is reminiscent of his previous project, Hot Reader, and seems to be catching more ears than that overlooked group managed to snag (definitely a plus). Daniel D, an electronic musician who composes film scores in his spare time and is a member of the Richmond Synth Collective, will be on hand as well, and Heavy Friends, whose new LP isn’t out for another month and who I haven’t otherwise heard, will also contribute a set. The evening is rounded out by the scrappy lo-fi punk of Sleepy Joe’s Distortion Unit, whose name makes me feel a little iffy but whose music seems solid as a rock. Get into this one, and learn the history of the place you live, in all its complicated beauty.
Wednesday, April 1, 7 PM
Flora & The Fauna, Dhemo, Velvet Ruin @ Gallery 5 – $15 (order tickets HERE)
Look, I admit it, I write about a ton of bands, musicians, and artists in this column every week, and a lot of them make no more of an impression upon me than it takes to write a paragraph or so about them and then move on. After 12 years of doing this column, I’ll think that a touring band coming through town is vaguely familiar, but I’ll have to do a Google search to figure out if I’ve ever written about them before. And of course, it’s always news to me what I wrote about them last time. But there are a few bands who make the kind of impression necessary to get me to return to their music months and years after the time when I wrote about them — and funnily enough, a fair few of the bands that stick with me this way are based right here in Richmond. Flora & The Fauna are the single Richmond band that’s made the most powerful impression on me in the past few years, and I’ve made it a point to go see them at least three times now. That said, I’m here to tell you that if you haven’t managed to see them by now, you really need to fix that as soon as possible. This is one of the great bands of our era, and they’re from right here in town.
Tonight is a great opportunity to see this quartet strut their stuff onstage at Gallery 5, as they prepare to depart the city for a spring tour intended to bring their amazing debut LP, I Wanna, to music fans beyond the borders of the river city. Their upbeat yet heartfelt, catchy yet subtly complex songs are laced with sugary pop vibes even as they pack a powerful emotional punch. Crowd-pleasers like “Kiss Your Friends” will have you singing along by the second chorus even if it’s your first time hearing them. Seriously, this quartet of transfemme talents is amazing, and you’ve gotta get familiar with them if you aren’t already. (If you are, I’m assuming you’ve already bought your tickets for this one.) Support for this musical extravaganza will be provided by Dhemo, a delightfully lounge-ish R&B group with some delightful kickback vibes on their 2025 LP, Chasing Smiles. The evening is rounded out by gothic punks Velvet Ruin, who bring a sound straight out of the early 80s LA deathrock scene on their excellent “Gemini”/”Gun” single. Looking forward to more from this band? You’ll surely get it if you show up to this one on time. Get stoked.
Thursday, April 2, 7 PM
Prayer Group, Dug, Null, Molt @ Bandito’s – $10 (order tickets HERE)
Richmond mainstays Prayer Group have been doing a great job of bringing heavy, gloomy noise-rock to this city for quite a while. I’m talking, of course, about their own music, most recently unleashed upon the city and the world in the form of 2025 mini-LP Strawberry. Its thudding, bombastic roar carries the terror-sludge power of Unsane and mixes in more than a little of the explosive atmosphere present on Swans’ most intense works. But that’s not the only way Prayer Group drops heavy noise onto the city on a regular basis; they also tend to bring some of the best underground noise-rock acts in the nation through town on a semi-regular basis. This four-band bill at Bandito’s Thursday night is the latest example, featuring two incredibly intense bands from elsewhere in the United States: Minneapolis-based Dug, and Birmingham’s own Null.
If you like what Prayer Group hit you with at any given performance, chances are you will be thrilled with what Dug and Null bring to the stage as well. Dug has some of that same Swans energy you’ll hear in Prayer Group, but mixes it with the borderline-noise/power-electronics feel of long-running experimental sludge duo The Body. On their You Make Me Sad EP, things veer between humming noise and plodding, slow-motion collapse level sludge parts, overtop of which their singer wails and roars in a mournful tone. It’s a shot in the arm of the darkest, most sinister emotions crafted into musical power. Null are quite a bit more conventionally musical, overlaying their sludge tempos with hovering guitar and vocal melodies. On 2024’s First Sign Ahead, they move from Melvins-style sludge-rock grooves to more droney heavy-indie vibes that evoke the likes of the Secret Machines. Richmond punks Molt will open things up, a late replacement for Copperhead who were originally on this bill. This show’s gonna pack a serious wallop.
Friday, April 3, 7 PM
Andy Thomas, Sam Morrow, Cornbread Cowboi @ The Broadberry – $25.23 (order tickets HERE)
It’s Friday night, so it’s the perfect night to forget all your troubles and just get wild n’ crazy with some goodtime old-school Southern-style rock n’ roll, with a strong dose of country twang mixed in. That’s what Andy Thomas is bringing to the Broadberry stage on this Friday night, as he celebrates the release of his debut solo LP, Highway Junkie. Thomas has previously been known around Richmond for his band The Trongone Band, featuring himself, his brother, and his father. I assume the new last name is what was previously his middle name, but really it’s none of my business — I can’t deny that Andy Thomas has a great ring to it. His brand new album has a great ring to it as well, shifting from song to song from classic country forms revitalized into beautiful modern ballads, into heartfelt, toe-tapping classic rock of the Southern variety, which is sure to appeal to fans of everything from early Wilco to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Considering how the Trongone Band built their reputation on their formidable live prowess, Andy Thomas is clearly a seasoned live performer who will dish out a killer set that’ll have everyone in the place swaying and singing along.
He might even inspire you to hoist a beer or two, but Thomas won’t be joining you — his sobriety has been a key to getting his new project together and remaining stable enough to make a solo album and take it on the road. I for one applaud that — sobriety may not be the cool thing but my own abstinence from substances probably saved my life when I was younger, so if it also gives us a revitalized young singer-songwriter playing rock n’ roll with aplomb and panache, I gotta celebrate that. And you should celebrate the arrival of Highway Junkie into the world, and do so with Andy Thomas and the crew down at the Broadberry this Friday night. California singer-songwriter Sam Morrow, who also brings a dirty-south swing and grit to his countrified classic rock n’ roll sound, will provide support on this fine evening, and the event will be hosted by a colorful character known as the Cornbread Cowboi. Should be a real delight. Get on down to it.
Saturday, April 4, 8 PM
Doreen, Or Best Offer, Theadoore, Drunk Mother @ The Camel – $10 in advance, $12 day of show (order tickets HERE)
Saturday night is a night of heavy vibes at The Camel — vibes that will surely speak to the lysergically and cannabistically inclined (yeah, I made up that word, but you know what I mean), but also to sober kids who know how to use music to float right out into space. This bill pairs two bands from the Richmond area with a duo of New York-based groups, all four of whom like to take things a little out into the ether. Or Best Offer is the first of the two NYC bands, and their music is experimental in structure, but fascinating and hypnotic, coalescing into acoustic tunes that feel like Laura Marling at one moment, sliding into Sonic Youth-ish shoegaze, and then dissolving into sonic tinkering that builds an atmosphere despite not always being clear about where it’s going. They’re the first band in over 20 years to remind me of Warren Defever’s legendarily strange group, His Name Is Alive. This is a huge compliment if you know the reference at all. If not… sorry, just being an obscure rockcrit nerd again. You must expect it by now.
Theadoore is the other of the New York groups headed to Richmond for this show, and their songs have a bit more of a conventional structure. However, they retain the loose, ramshackle feel of Or Best Offer’s song structures, and mix in a more melodic sound that’s a bit indie-pop, but also a bit twee and a bit shoegaze… once again, I find it hard to compare what they’re doing to anything going on in the music world today. That’s definitely a compliment. Of the Richmond groups on this bill, Doreen is closer to what the two out-of-towners are doing, their hovering slowcore tunes hypnotic in their beauty. Drunk Mother heads in more of a country-twang direction, while still keeping an indie flavor. The whole thing adds up to a lovely Saturday night that won’t feel too intense or energetic… you know, in case everything going on in the world has got you a little too jittered up for a full-on rock show. Believe me, I know how it goes.
Sunday, April 5, 7 PM
Havana Syndrome, Inverted Cross, VV, Service Weapon @ Cobra Cabana – $15
So OK, from the relatively laid-back Saturday night at the Camel, we proceed onward to a night of hardcore madness at Cobra Cabana to wrap up the weekend. Vibe-wise, it sorta feels like these shows should be in opposite order, but you’ve gotta grab the bands as they come through town, and sometimes things can get a little wild from night to night. Havana Syndrome are definitely here to get wild — this Buffalo punk band mixes synth bleeps and weird squiggly noises into a harsh, energetic attack that is not one iota less ferociously hardcore punk rock than it would be without the electro-synth touches. If anything, though, the weirdness is what sends it a cut above, makes the Crazy and the Brains-style pummeling this band delivers into something well beyond what similar bands were doing a decade or two in the past.
Norfolk’s Inverted Cross are also on this bill, and this band brings the kind of lo-fi punk craziness that I simultaneously love a whole lot and find kinda impenetrable. There’s very little in terms of facts that I can bring you where this band is concerned; I know where they’re from, and I know they released a demo back in 2024 that is just a total wall of lo-fi hardcore punk chaos. Beyond that… almost nothing. But let’s be real — what else do you really need to know? These guys are going to bring the serious moshpit energy to Cobra Cabana. Isn’t that what we all want? Good enough as far as I’m concerned. Richmond postpunk noise-makers VV will bring a raw, spontaneous attack to the stage, while fellow Richmonders Service Weapon certainly look good in pics I’ve seen online… but I still haven’t heard them. Whatever — I’m sure they’ve got the goods, just like every other band on this bill. Get into it.
Monday, April 6, 7 PM
Blair, Polo Perks, Doris, Alfred @ The Camel – $15 (order tickets HERE)
We don’t always get this lucky on Monday nights, so we definitely should cherish this Camel show, brought to us by the folks at Underground Orchard. Headlined by New York City group Blair, this is a rare treat featuring a group that’s gotten a lot of buzz in recent years with it’s strange stoned-out take on indie and shoegaze vibes. 2024’s Blair II sounds like indie-rock kids hanging out with their hip hop friends and getting stoned in a room full of musical instruments, then just bashing out whatever comes to mind, and somehow due to sheer stoner luck it’s brilliant every time. Acoustic folk, jangly indie, trap beats, rapping, slacker-style sung vocals… all fight for space with one another in the dense arrangements that feel like they shouldn’t work, and yet do, SO WELL, every single time. My only remaining question: what in the world could this be like live? It might be total chaos, but it’s likely to be blissed-out and transcendent regardless. Because as spontaneous and thrown together as Blair sometimes feels, it’s clear that a group like this has planned everything out to the last detail.
Blair’s joined on this performance by the New York rapper known as Polo Perks, who is connected with hip hop collective Surf Gang and makes vaporwave-style songs full of off-kilter samples and graced by his blunted yet brilliant rhymes. It’s the sort of thing that might appeal just as much to weed-smoking indie kids and pizza-loving metal dudes as it does to stone-cold hip hop heads, and it’s all the better for it. The third and final New Yorker on this bill is another rapper of sorts, known as Doris but actually named Frank Dorrey, if the internet is to be believed. Bedroom production on his early release Ultimate Love Songs caught the attention of Pitchfork, and his most recent release is Everything Else, an overstuffed 45-song 75-minute release that puts the cloud (of weed smoke) in “cloud rap” and is somehow tremendously engaging, almost addictive in its endless procession of hip hop earworms. Richmond’s own Alfred gets the party started with his own synthwave take on hip hop, which is always a delight, and definitely fits in well with the other groups on this jam-packed bill. Make a significant improvement to your Monday night plans; spend the evening at The Camel.
Tuesday, April 7, 7 PM
Lowheaven, Terror Cell, Lacking @ Cobra Cabana – $12
When I was a little kid I used to hear about April showers an awful lot, and therefore it seems like the most appropriate month in which to welcome Canadian band Lowheaven to Richmond — a notoriously storm-infected month for a stormy, ominous-sounding band. Lowheaven’s debut LP, Ritual Decay, finds them shifting back and forth between quiet, moody moments that evoke the Deftones in a particularly apocalyptic mood and explosions of heavyosity that carry an intense vibe reminiscent of Neurosis at some times and Cave-In circa Until Your Heart Stops at others. The downtuned brutality is all-encompassing at times, but the band is just as capable of emotion-driven melodies with a pounding undercurrent. It’s a perfect recipe for heavy vibes. The only thing that would make this even more intense is a storm rolling in as their set progresses. But we all know Cobra Cabana doesn’t need that sort of nonsense, so hopefully I just reverse-cursed them to have a dry Tuesday night.
Regardless of the weather, Lowheaven will be far from the only heavy sounds on the premises, as Richmond’s own Terror Cell will often powerful support to this already powerful evening. Having impressed everyone when they burst onto the scene in 2022 with roaring debut Caustic Light, they only cranked the temperature that much higher with 2024 follow-up All Is Quiet (a title that’s not winning any truth in advertising awards when it graces such a noisy, hectic collection of metallic hardcore tunes). If you’re wondering whether a third LP is soon to be in the offing, you’re not the only one, but I have no official word at the moment, so show up and see what sort of tunes they bust out. It’ll either be familiar slices of excellent heaviness or new grooves sure to set the bar for the band even higher; regardless, you can’t lose! The evening kicks off with a set from local grindcore-style power trio (singer, guitarist, drummer, no bass) Lacking, whose tunes carry that classic lightning-speed blasting mixed with the occasional heavier breakdown moments that was the sound of all the classic first-wave power violence bands. If Infest, No Comment, Despise You, and Lack of Interest are your jam, you’ll definitely want to show up to this one on time. Stay dry!
Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers -– this week’s column has obviously already been written): rvamustseeshows@gmail.com
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