Live Review: The XX/ JJ/ That other dude at the Wexner Center

Raw review from donewasting’s unpaid staff. Consider this a charitable donation, Duffy.

I was really bummed that there was some other opener last night. I didn’t catch his name. He played techno stuff that had it’s moments. I totally was not into it. The thing that bugged me was he didn’t announce his name until 10 minutes in and I kept thinking “What if this is Kode 9 and I haven’t been paying attention.” Anyhow, if you showed up fashionably late, congrats.

According to jj, hakunna matata means “stoned bored hobo.” She (jj?) was dressed in some brown shawl, black bandana around her neck, black dress and white tennis shoes. In short, a homeless witch. JJ did not help her case against homelessness by constantly scratching her head.

Where it turned interesting was with the music. I won’t front, she has a great voice. Her first song was an acoustic joint that was incredibly stark and bare and complemented her voice wonderfully. Then she took the guitar off and handed it to the other part of jj?! The additional member was a male stoned bored hobo. As he took the guitar, he turned on the laptop where jj showed home movies, played their cd and she essentially turned in a kareoke set. He barely strummed along and watched the movies!

Some of the videos appeared to have been travel channel leftovers of the African savannah, soccer players or home movies. The soccer player featured a costume change on the part of the dude in the band where he shedded his jacket to reveal that he too was wearing A SOCCER JERSEY! Many of the home movies showed jj having some emotion which she showed none of while performing. Essentially, jj’s performance was the equivalent of going on a job interview and answering every question with “UMMMMMMMMMMMM”.

In short, Remember that girl in the freshman dorms that seemed kinda off, lightweight cute, smoked that homegrown bud and would talk frequently about her art? Then you found out she made art with tvs or pictures of her boobs and you thought “this shit sucks”. That was jj.

After a torturous set, headliners XX were up. Anything would have been better than the previous two sets. XX delivered both style and substance. The songs weren’t played exactly as the album which was a plus. There were slight differences such as different drum patterns or slower tempo made the songs more interesting to listen to. The bassist was part vampire part nazi and part sleazy Brit, which was perfect.

The thing that XX brought to go with their sleek icy tunes was a light show. Some bands spend their advance on cars, weed or chains but XX invested in lights which at times were blinding but didn’t detract from the performance. For their encore, their backdrop lit up like stars with a silhouette of an X. If you missed it, it’s understandable because there have been a ton of events going on in town. Don’t make the same mistake twice.