Last Night: Rainer Maria @ PhilaMOCA

Cult favorite NYC indie band Rainer Maria continued their resurrection on Wednesday night with the first of two Philly shows at PhilaMOCA (tonight’s Johnny Brenda’s show is, alas, sold-out). They may have needed to expedite their set to meet their 10:30 curfew (OK, they pushed it to 10:45), but that did not affect the quality.

The tight three-piece — Caithlin De Marrais, Kaia Fischer and William Kuehn — have been playing together for 20+ years and were totally in synch. De Marrais was in orange darkness, with her bass and vocals painting the audience members’ ears with dollops of emotions. Fischer’s guitar work, restricted to a small parcel of PhilaMOCA’s stage, still proved to be as explosive and fun to watch as ever. And Kuehn’s front-and-center drums completed the radiant, yet enigmatic sound. This band is not to be missed live.

Olivia Neutron-John, of Washington, D.C., opened with her expressive keyboard and vocal suites. Philly-based S-21 also played.