A Little Bit More, A Little Bit More

Saturday night Seattlest was at a packed Chop Suey for the highly-anticipated performance by one-man laptop soul band Jamie Lidell. After hearing how he stole the show when he opened for Four Tet last fall, we went into his solo appearance with high expectations---so it's a good thing that Mr. Lidell was approximately awesome. Only one song into the set, when the trenchcoat-clad Brit had simply sat on a stool and poured his heart out over a Motown groove, we turned to our companion and sighed, "He's dreamy."

But Lidell is more than just a pretty face. He's also incredibly talented, both in terms of technical mastery and his gorgeous, full-bodied voice. With great dynamic control, mad mic skillz, and a downright electric stage presence (confident without being cocky), Jamie put on an utterly engaging show. Often he'd construct a song from the ground up: beatboxing to lay down the rhythmic foundation, next thowing in a couple vocal loops, then playing around with his sampler and mixer to add more effects, before finally singing over the audio mishmash he had created. Lidell's a showman through and through, and he had the dancing crowd in the palm of his microphoned hand.

The contrast between Jamie Lidell and opening act Jimmy Edgar couldn't have been greater. Though both are talented mixologists, Lidell played to the crowd while Edgar was in his own little electro-goth world, a world full of redundant beats and distorted robot vocals. The stage lighting only exacerbated the differences between the two sets. Edgar tweaked knobs in shadow while Lidell performed on a well-lit stage, allowing the crowd to better see him work. Towards the end of the show, Jimmy joined Jamie, and together they manned the boards. Even then, all eyes were on Lidell as he did his mixing thang.

For the encore, the audience's rapt attention was bequeathed to one of their own, an enthusiastic fan who got onstage to help sing the infectious single "Multiply". The overly-excited fella's voice was surprisingly decent, and the crowd applauded his hat-waving showmanship. Lucky guy---for a moment in time, that random white dude had joined Jamie Lidell's ranks as a funk soul brother.

Photo care of Justin Ouellette.
Check out more of his pics at www.chromogenic.net.