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.
pretty sure the first opener is Nosaj Thing
Totally agree with your description of jj’s set – so totally bizarre. woof.
“What if this is Kode 9 and I haven’t been paying attention.”
really? i hate that people judge music based on some external notion of credibility/popularity. you’re standing right in front of the guy! pay attention & decide for yourself if you like the music. i thought his set was pretty damn good, but that’s my opinion.
lastly, i’m pretty disappointed in this review. next time, spend less of your time attacking the musicians personally, and talk more about the music and performance itself.
best addition to DW since Durst Watch
Ebenezer in ’12
Third!
yep, that about sums it up – thanks! i will only add that the arty shots of the african savannah were awesome, and that the crowd went “ooh” when the xx’s stars backdrop lit up.
I’m doubtin’ Ebenezer gives a shit, but for the sake of context, the soccer footage and the jersey can be attributed to Inter Milan’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who’s Swedish. JJ is Swedish. whatever.
she probably doesn’t, so i’ll post this for your sake. ibrahimovic now plays for barcelona :)
you’re right. shoulda said footage was from Inter days, jersey from Barca days.
“That other dude” is Nosaj Thing and he had a super musical and physical flow and we really enjoyed him. He said what his name was at the end of the show and you can find his name on the Wexner site. And it’s definitely *not* techno. Try glitch-hop or experimental electronic.
jj is a duo. The girl’s name is Elin. Something also readily available on the internet.
This review was worse than jj’s set, which was seriously depressing, awkward, and entirely awful. Thanks for the entertainment, but bad looks DW. Bad looks.
It’s a shame that you will never know if it was Kode 9 because you didn’t bother to research who was performing at the show…that you wrote about. The first act’s name was both on the website and the merch table, right outside the door. Quality.
I saw a lot of people really getting into the first act (Nosaj Thing, for the record). I also think he did a nice job of setting the mood for The XX later on. I will absolutely agree that the jj performance was bizarre and not great at all. They (jj) have been getting really bad concert reviews the entire tour because of shows like last night (sometimes she makes a solo appearance, and her name is not jj, for the record). It’s interesting that they were chosen to join The XX.
If you’re going to write a review, please keep in mind that attempts to be snarky don’t make up for lacking basic show knowledge.
it’s not a wikipedia entry. it’s an impression. it also happens to be funny.
What is wrong with commenters on the main page? Please don’t post in the boards. I prefer to suspect that the rest of the world is made up of ridiculous, picky crybabies, not to have it confirmed.
No shit. Cripes.
It’s somehow picky to expect a reviewer to not be willfully ignorant and to figure out the name of an opening act? Yeah, that’s helpful. “I saw some guy play and I didn’t like him.” How informative.
If you could recomend a guide for understanding the subtle differences between the varieties of fist fucking music I would greatly appreciate it.
Thx!
your attitude is garbage, as is your ability to write. sucks that your review was my first impression of donewaiting. i won’t be back.
pro tip: it helps to be open-minded.
did you just get the internet yesterday
Funny you’d ask him that when it’s more appropriate for the reviewer who evidently doesn’t know how to use a search engine. I can see why you’d defend the relevance of Done Waiting over Google though.
no, see-nevermind
did you just get the internet yesterday
Sorry, I forgot to mention humorless. Ridiculous, picky, HUMORLESS crybabies. Carry on.
obviously dude did just get the internet yesterday or he never would have given himself the name “DP”. Throw that in your image search engine, smartpants.
i like book reports.
i don’t like satire.
Ohhh I see. You mean like, “People say vile ill-informed make-no-excuses crap on the internet all the time, so why are you surprised?” Well played.
exactly that yes welcome to the internet!
you can sign up for mailing lists and spam from lots of publicists and corporations.
then you don’t even need google.
seriously, leave your email here and ill get you on tons of mailing lists that have no opinion and read just like a book report.
I write for a music zine, so I already get them, but thanks anyway. :D
I guess I prefer my show reviews and satire to be informed, because that’s what usually makes them enjoyable, interesting, good, funny, what have you. I like my comedy to be a little more Arrested Development than E! News, but I’m glad other people enjoyed it.
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs516.snc3/27100_115102741840598_100000226173484_260035_3822362_n.jpg
if these XX fans are any indication of what the music sounds like… i’m envisioning sand-encrusted, bleeding vagina (???). actually, that sounds kinda metal.
if this review makes you sad you can always go to
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2010/04/06/an-intoxicating-mood-seeps-from-short-show.html?sid=101
why do you have to hate? i’m looking at YOU!
“LOL SUM ASIAN GUY PLAYED SUM TECHNOS I DIDNT LIKE IT IT MUST SUX”
yeah, great review… the xx no doubt stole the show, but having only heard nosaj thing’s album a few times, i didn’t have many expectations and was surprised at how good of a live show he put on
Jeeez people. Can we let DW writers do their thang, satire, personality and all? Granted, I’m well aware of Nosaj Thing – he’s very talented. It was slightly disappointing the blogger was unaware but I still got a kick of the professed ignorance.
One thing that kills me though is DW’s constantly policing of these comments. If someone says some extremely false or offensive, that’s one thing. Otherwise, they should back off and let the readers bicker and banter all they want. Sometimes it gets to the point that DW feels the need to gang up on commentors, which is silly. STill love this blog though.
not sure what u mean by us policing… we pretty much let everything go except the highly illegal/get us in jail stuff.
“policing” was an exaggeration. to clarify, i occasionally notice DW staff needlessly engaging commentors who are merely expressing opinions. you’ve got a good site, good writers, enthusiastic readers – don’t get the need to play defense in some cases. that’s all.
word. you know at the end of the day we are all very emotional and all fall asleep hugging each other.
hahaha! sounds like a good gig.
Pingback: Photos: The XX, jj, Nosaj Thing in Columbus
All I have to say is Zlatan, Zlatan is the man.
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