Brightest Young Things

all photos: Martin Locraft
all words: Emily Amarel who sacrificed herself on the altar of teenage lust to do this one for us.

I still love you, Johnathan Rice. I still love you event though you were at least 45 minutes late getting on stage (you are the opener, dude, and this isn’t like the 1997 Rolling Stones tour when Pearl Jam was the opening band). I still love you even though it is apparent to me that you have kind of sold out to the likes of your girlfriend and are now wearing unflattering skinny jeans and earthy colored tees rather than the grunge-rocker holy jeans and worn white tee you had on when you opened for Ben Gibbard last summer. I still love you even after your opening statement to the crowd (45 minutes late!) was, “This is a song about everything, so if you don’t like it, you don’t like anything.” Making me wonder just how drunk I had been at the Ben Gibbard show last summer…

I love you because despite the aforementioned setbacks you put on an amazing show. You completely lived up to my unrealistic expectations and exhibited simple and endearing talent that I think anyone can appreciate. You have a captivating stage presence which I find fairly impressive in light of the fact that it is none other than you and your guitar. To be completely honest, I think very few musicians can keep the attention of the audience with such a simple one-man set-up, especially at the 9:30 club.

During your second song a (really drunk/annoying) girl (mostly likely from the depths of greater Northern Virginia’s suburbia) turned to Haley and me and said, “This is how I imagine Brad Pitt sings to himself in the shower, just really throaty and heartfelt.” J.R., if you’re reading this, you might be thinking, “Was that a compliment?” I wondered that too (great minds think alike!), and I am thinking yes, because she has just associated you with two positives: nakedness and Brad Pitt. In summation, you rock my world, and because I love you so much, I am even going to dig up that old Suburban Groove album Trip’s brother loved so much just so I can get a better idea of how versatile you are as a musician.

I didn’t really know much about Matt Costa until, well yesterday. To sum it up, he is your stereo-typical dreamboat. Epitomizing the singer/song-writer genre, he brought in a fan-base consisting of screaming girls and young frat boys hoping to nail one of the screaming girls. I didn’t particularly care for the majority of his music (aside from song three, in which he rocked out on the keyboard – very David Silver from Beverly Hills 90210 circa the days when the gang was still at West Beverly), however I think he should be respected for the swooning singer/song-writer stereotype that he is. Moreover, Haley and I discussed that he’d probably be largely more appreciated in a smaller “loungy-er” venue like the Velvet Lounge or the Rock and Roll Hotel.

Previously in Live DC:

• 2/13: LiveDC: George Clinton & The Parliament-Funkadelic @ 930 Club
• 2/13: LiveDC: Veronica Falls/ Brilliant Colors @ Black Cat
• 2/13: LIVE DC: Steve Aoki/ Datsik/ Alvin Risk @ Fillmore
• 2/13: LiveDC: The Darkness @ 930 Club
• 2/9: LiveDC: Theophilus London @ 930 Club
• 2/9: Best Weekend Bets
• 2/8: LiveDC: Kathleen Edwards @ 930 Club
• 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
• 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
• 2/7: LiveDC: Demetri Martin @ Warner Theatre