Jolayne and I made the trip up to Lawrence yesterday to catch RJD2 at the Granada. We got there around 5, because I had read online that it started at 7pm (which seemed odd and as we found out later was completely wrong). In the time before the show we walked around Lawrence, got dinner at the Free State Brewing Co., and I bought some cds. Afterwards we walked down to the Granada where we found that the show didn’t actually start until 9. As we were walking away to go find something to do in the meantime, the side door at the Granada opened up and RJ stepped out. At this point, I should mention that 1. RJ is originally from Columbus, OH and 2. Jolayne had met him several times there because he had been dating one of her good friends for a while. So RJ steps out, Jolayne said hi, he remembered her and they chatted briefly. As he was heading back in, he offered to add us to the guest list. That’s right, my fiance’s got the connections going on. That was really awesome for him to do though, and he seemed like a cool guy.

After hanging out in Lawrence a while longer, we went back to the Granada where we found we were on the guest list, as promised. The opening act was Hanger 18, another Def Jux artist that I thought was pretty good but not one of my favorites. On the other hand, RJD2’s set was fantastic. He had 4 turntables, a sampler, and a laptop on stage and he was running around like a madman the whole time, switching records at an insane pace. I have no idea how he does it. Musically, it was an awesome mix of Deadringer and his most recent album. Everything just moved fluidly from one track to another, with familiar samples popping up everywhere. In the background a giant theatre screen was showing a bunch of interesting video sequences, in case you didn’t think it was entertaining enough to watch RJ work the turntables. The film was definitely cool, and it even featured a few quick shots that Jolayne and I were able to recognize as being from around Columbus. It’s good to see the Bus get some love.

Comments

Comment by Nathan Hessler on 2004-11-01 20:16:50 +0000

wow, I thought this site was down. I haven’t been here in several months. so first off…. CONGRATS!!!!! and it seems like you guys are having plenty of fun. 😀

BTW – I’m back in school and just declared my major in CSE so if you have any advice to send my way I would appreciate it.

Keeping it short. Glad to see you kept this up and and updated. It’s always fun to read up on what you’ve been doing. You would have made a great journalist if not for your l337 h4x0r skeelz. 😉