Stop the press. Please, for the love of God, stop the press.
Nicholas Jaar could be forgiven for thinking it was a good idea to re-imagine his universally acclaimed album as a live act; he is, after all, more than a techno DJ. Anybody that knows anything about music knows that mid-song tempo shifts and pitch-shifted saxophones are the sole territory of avant-garde, jazz-electronica pioneers. Nicolas Jaar knows this better than anyone.
Jaar’s band of frat-buddy, grade-5 instrumentalists could be forgiven for thinking that touring with a Joaquin Phoenix lookalike from South America would all but guarantee them a veritable cornucopia of coke and hookers, and could therefore be forgiven for prostituting themselves to his Mozart-puppet-master fantasies and wanking off their instruments in turn whilst gazing longingly at their provider.
So much coke and hookers that they turned up 45 minutes late for their set, and left the stage after little over an hour of performing to a crowd that paid £15 each to see them.
So who's to blame for the unpunctual, overpriced and arrogantly concise performance by Jaar and Co? The Press. Nicolas Jaar is, after all “just a techno DJ”, and if we needed any proof, it was in the woefully uninventive live interpretation of his album. The only noticeable contributions from his band members were their pseudo-virtuoso solos over the previously opium-dream interludes in his songs, lapped up by a crowd that had apparently never hung around to watch a year 9 school concert where for the sake of parent politics, every child gets a solo part.
You see, the Press have convinced Jaar, his pals and the world that he’s some messianic spawn of Gil Scott-Heron and Ricardo Villalobos. He’s not- the messianic spawn of Gil Scott-Heron and Ricardo Villalobos could rearrange Ludacris on a whistle and a cello and in half an hour make it sound like Mozart.
Jaar is ultimately just a really talented young producer with a truly original sound (and some enthusiastic friends with expensive instruments bought with their college funds), that is all. And I don’t want to sound petty, but he’s going to feel like a real idiot when he realises it in a 5 star hotel room surrounded by all that coke and all those hookers.
By Luke Hodgkinson
It was great night and music was brilliant even though it was for short period of time, believe me crowd that was there would pay that 15 pounds again to see that night one more time, i would pay even 100 so stop writing bullshit and and waisting your own time first ;)
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