...when in Rome...

Last Friday a spritely British chick was set to perform at the Wiltern (corner of WILshire and wesTERN--pointed out to me by M.Nash). Having purchased my tickets weeks in advance I was ripe with anticipation. A few months ago I posted my thoughts about Imogen Heap's latest album. I equated her voice with a mother, a mother with a soothing banchee voice. She has the voice of a siren (Homer's distracting women...not LA's distracting noises) and the look of a runway model with the outfit to match. Her attitude was playful yet commanding and the show was outrageous.

To truly understand the gravity of the evening you must first begin with four fairly preppy southern men and women deciding to dress as imo-indi-alternative-weird as we were comfortable with. I, in my red KangaRoos, inside-out suit coat, t-shirt, dress pants and tie with a highly-gelled faux hawk think I looked pretty spot-on for the evening. Greg, Kelly and Meghan all followed suit.

Greg, Kelly, me, Meghan

After getting dressed (including a makeup tragedy with Greg) we all went outside and tried to figure out who would drive? Then after leaving a ticket in the house, parking in the middle of the driveway so unnamed (Greg) could go get said ticket, drivingto the gas station for a little Red Bull/Rockstar energy drink combo and off we went. (side note: another great thing about LA is that no one really cared we were dressed that weird--NEVER get away with that in Char or Knoxville)

Disgruntled emo models with energy drinks strike a pose

After racing around on the interstate to the newest rap collaborations from my collection we finally arrived and parked. We walked up to what looked to be a fairly old theater, passed through the metal detectors and were frisked quite thoroughly. After throwing out our tounge rings and Greg's steel hip we entered.

The place was beautiful and we got their early enough to get good ground floor standing room. The first act was some random guy with a guitar. He was pretty good and had some neat tricks with looping different sounds and rhythms. That was merely the beginning of that machine.

The second act was insane. Kid Beyond is litterly a complete beat-box. He was simply insane. All I could do was find this video of him on YouTube to post for you because it was so wild.



He went on to use a looping machine too and made full on band-like melodies. He was simply extraordinary.

Then Imogen took the stage and performed brilliantly. One thing I really love about I.Heap is her knowledge of electronics and mastery of a number of techniques and instruments producing so many great and unique sounds and songs. Also she had the first two acts come out and perform along side her and they had such great chemistry. If you have a chance to download her music or at least listen to her in 30-second bits on iTunes music store and you'll have a frozen and microwaved taste of what me and hundreds more feasted on freshly Friday night (kudos to alliteration on that one). It was a great show and I had a great time with my friends.

I might try to rock the tie and t-shirt in K-town.

Nahhh.