Since We Last Spoke, I Let the Good Times Roll

Charlie, Galen and I went to a phenomenal RJD2 show at Neumos on Friday night. After a bit of wine and vegetarian potluck with Galen's friends from Whitman---Corey, Sarah, and Lance---we hopped over to Capitol Hill with plenty of Fighting Cock in Charlie's Atwood Dorm Flask. Happy Chichester, a solo musician, was playing as we arrived and we were mostly unimpressed. I did not like his voice and his songs were uninspiring despite reasonable skill on keyboard and guitar.

Our disinterest changed to excitement and energy as Pigeon John began his set. His rapping was genuine and unpretentious and merry---the crowd was quickly engaged, jumping and/or throwing hands in the air as instructed. We had a nice little spot to dance near the front, with elbow room over the fenced-off lane separating the over- and under-21 year-olds. I know next to nothing about hip-hop, and have listened seriously to little of the genre, but I thought Pigeon John was fantastic. Check him out.

The crowd swelled and pushed up in preparation for RJD2 but we secured a similar spot, albeit with less dancing room. RJD2's music sounds predominantly electronic---he began his career as a DJ---so we were a bit surprised to see him take the stage with musical accompaniment and a guitar of his own. Happy Chichester came back as well to help but played quite well in this set. I was blown away by the instrumental craft on songs like "Ghostwriter," "Since We Last Spoke," "1976," "Making Days Longer" and others. RJ himself even provided most of the vocals. Hearing and seeing the songs performed live, in front of you, with basically no samples, is just unparalleled.

Still, he did get back to his DJ roots on a good portion of the set. While RJ worked the turntables, he has a small camcorder trained on his kit and then projected on a screen at the back of the stage, alternating between the live feed of hot spinning and random ass video clips. I do have to say that RJD2 did not engage the crowd as consistently as did Pigeon John and that we did not much like the offerings from RJ's new album, The Third Hand. Regardless, worth $18? Hell Yes. We left late into the night, tired and buzzing from the music and bourbon.