This post originally appeared over at Londonist.

The New York university system seems to be doing well at the moment - first they turned out the amazing Vampire Weekend, and now Syracuse, New York, has turned out the brilliant Ra Ra Riot who played a headlining set at Monto Water Rats last night. Things got hot and sweaty as they ploughed through their 45 minute set in the tiny backroom, playing with so much energy you’d barely believe they’ve played a gig every night this week.

Earlier in the evening, The Daves warmed things up a bit with their radio-friendly anthems. They’re just like Dave TV too - a guilty pleasure, nice to dip in and out of, but also very predictable and unoriginal. Quickly followed by In Between Days, who sounded a bit like Lostprophets in a mixing pot with Biffy Clyro - good, but not really main-support material.

However there was no hiding who we were there for - Ra Ra Riot came on and gave us their rather unique mix of traditional bass, drums, guitar and keys augmented by violin and cello with enough energy to get everyone dancing, even the boring post-work crowd complete with unimpressed girlfriends. By the end of their set everyone was dancing like it was 1999, drenched in sweat with derranged smiles on their faces. As lead singer Wesley Miles commented: “This may not be our biggest gig this week, but you’re certainly the liveliest!”

Closing out their set with the double header of current single “Ghost Under Rocks” and previous single “Dying is Fine”, it was amazing that the six of them managed to stay on stage long with the amount they were bouncing into each other, falling over and generally having an amazing time. The poor soundguys were going to have fun - the cables of mics and guitars were amazingly well entangled from their antics.

Even if you haven’t heard of Ra Ra Riot go and check them out now - they may not make it to the big time, but they might just be one of your favourite secret bands.

So, I’m trying a new thing this week: A “daily roundup” of everything that doesn’t merit a complete post of its own. It won’t be literally every day (I do go out sometimes you know), but will be a collection of new MP3s, Videos, music etc.

A busy bank holiday weekend has quickly been and gone, and now I’m staring down the barrell of this weekend’s Hydro Connect festival. Things are moving along quickly - today we confirmed that we’ll have an interview with one of the festival organisers and also the Duke who owns the castle who’s grounds its in. However, with one upside comes a downside - we’re most likely not going to be liveblogging as we’d hoped due to the realisation that taking my laptop to a muddy field in Scotland probably ain’t the best idea.

If you want something to do this weekend “down south”, then we’d reccomend Offset Festival. It’s new, but has a stellar lineup (Tom McRae, Maccabees, Blood Red Shoes, Young Knives), and Winston over at Winston’s Zen will be there covering it. His series of liveblog posts from V Festival set a precedent that I’m going to find hard to match up to with my pesky Sony Ericson k850i. His wrap up posts take a humorus turn on the numbers of the event - and an impressive number of sets. So whilst I’m fiddling around sending half baked posts to here via my (doubtful) connection, why not wander of to Winston’s place to catch some live blog action - it’ll be just like being there*

Right then… I’m off to bed. I’ve worked all day (all together now, ahhh, bless), and am catching Ra Ra Riot tomorrow at Water Rats in London (and have a spare ticket if anyone wants to join me…) and still have to sort out a tonne of stuff before the weekend. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some free MP3s to post for your enjoyment.

* Okay, maybe not just like being there. It’ll be warmer, and comfier at home, and you most likely won’t have beer thrown at you.