LA RITOURNELLE*

The Whitest Boy Alive

The foursome from Berlin, Germany played an amazing little gig last night at Bengkel Jakarta. Erlend Oye was being his little animated self, dressed in slacks, a buttoned shirt, a cardigan plus his trademark oversized glasses. At first glance he resembled a typical corporate office boy, but once he picked up his guitar and mic he hypnotized the audience with the floating beats of minimalist dream pop. With bassist Marcin Oz, drummer Sebastian Maschat and Daniel Nentwig on Rhodes piano/Crumar, the quartet performed several old songs, several current songs and several cover songs off their albums Dreams (2006), as well as Michael Mind’s urban club hit ‘Show Me Love’ and Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’. As the gig ended, the crowd went into a frenzy of We want more’s, all desperately hoping that The Whitest Boy Alive would electrify the crowd with more upbeat tunes, preparing them for the greatly expected performance of Steve Aoki.

must hear: The Whitest Boy Alive – 24k

Steve Aoki

Steve Aoki is a downright ‘hipster entrepreneur” (as nicknamed by the NY Times), doing everything from being a record producer to being the grande host to much Hollywood A-list parties. He seems like a pretty nice lad, actually, interacting with the crowd and possibly never rejecting a photo offer from fans. Yet his performance last night was just out of place. I blame it on the steel barricade distance between him and the crowd, in a large concert venue area. His attempts of interaction came from jumping up and down, running around the stage and drinking from a bottle of water. But what do you expect? Security will probably be on his ass if he jumped into the crowd just as Erlend Oye did previously last night.
In terms of music selection, I admit I don’t know much of his discography. But I’m one moody music enthusiast, and if the song selection does not make me enthusiastic, it’s probably crap. And the verdict? I ended up sitting down half of the time of Aoki’s set.