BrightestYoungThings: Live DC: Chester French/ Lady Sovereign

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Urban Cowboys, British Midget and Harvard Alumni.

Oh My!

Saturday night's late show at the 930 club was full of groupies, crowd surfing and broken beer bottles. Emcees and ivy leaguers came together to rock and definitely had something to prove.

Chicago's Hollywood Holt and Harvard's golden boys Chester French opened up for London’s rugged sprite Lady Sovereign in a all balls out production

Chi-Town's Hollywood Holt leapt to the stage first proclaiming his love for DC and promising to school the crowd on all things Chicago. Though his name sound like a flashy cowboy, Holt represented the Chi's brat pack of Kanye clones. Holt along with his cousin and , DJ Million Dollar Mano(also MIA's DJ ) delivered songs from his Hollywood EP. His hipster version of Throw Some D’s (reinterpreted as Throw a Kit) got the crowd hyped. As the leader of Chicago’s Murder Club Moped Crew, Holt rapped about the art of swerving and leaning and the dance craze called juking. Juking, a fast paced dance in which a female grinds on her male partner, was demonstrated by Holt to the screams of male and female fans. While I can’t quote any of Holt's lyrics from the performance, I can say that he is the ultimate entertainer. Holt’s short set was full of LL Cool J bravado a Twista influenced freestyle and crowd surfing through the scant audience.

Chester French

One of the more buzzworthy bands, Chester French whose name sounds like a really expensive cigarette where introduced to the stage by their DJ, lead singer D.A. Wallach and partner/lead guitarist Max Drummey were geeked to be in DC and offered a lively performance. The Harvard alums who were in a bidding war between Kanye West and Pharelle’s boutique labels Good Music and Star Trak respectively provided swinging tracks, catchy hooks and an aesthetic reminiscent of the Beach boys. Wallach, a bushy haired manic with an onstage fervor, utilized every percussion instrument handy. The boys along with their band of Perverts (no really that's their bands name) specialize in happy nerdy love songs i.e. “Jimmy Choos” and “She Loves Everybody”. One groupie friendly tune “Bebe Buell” bought 3 female fans onto the stage prompting Wallach to drop on bended knee and propose a night of copulation. The boys ran through tracks from their EP “She Loves Everybody” and their endurance mixtape “Jacque Jams” and their current album “Love the Future”.

Lady Sovereign’s DJ opened up her set with a 30 minute mix and few scratches. Backed by a Dj and drummer the pint sized emcee screamed, grabbed her crotch and tossed beer bottles throughout her entire set Sovereign’s show consisted of inaudible singing rather than the ferocious spitting her fans are used to. It seemed as if Sovereign abandoned here grime/garage heavy broken beat production in favor of more electronic and main stream fare. However she was able to maintain her trademarked obnoxious and crude attitude throughout the night even telling her fans to “give me that swine [flu]” after slapping their hands. Sovereign admitted that she was getting cheesy before launching into a version of Metro Station's “Shake it”. I’m sure somewhere Miley Cyrus’ brother is aglow.

Sovereign’s single “So Human” which samples the Cure’s “So Close to Me" incited party goers in the back of the 930 to do the “Carlton” dance. The track was definitely a sign that Sov’ is on the bandwagon of “ what’s popular now” and has no intentions of departing the ride. But it wasn’t until the end when Sov’ delivered the hit “Love me or Hate Me, a.k.a. the theme from the Bad Girl’s Club” that had the whole audience singing along. After a forced encore bought about by her DJ, Sovereign resurfaced to treat the departing crowd to an additional song.

Previously in Live DC:

3 years ago Svetlana said

Sovereign admitted that she was getting cheesy before launching into a version of Metro Station’s “Shake it”.

actually really only sad to have missed that part.