It's rare to see a DJ headlining a concert on his own, but that's exactly what happened Friday night in Alumnae Hall, where DJ and producer RJD2 performed solo as part of the Brown Concert Agency's fall show. Students gave the sold-out show overwhelmingly positive reviews despite a few small technical hitches and a change in the concert lineup.
Underground rapper Doujah Raze, originally scheduled to be the show's opening act, was forced to cancel his appearance because of the weather, according to a BCA announcement made around half an hour after the show was scheduled to start. But RJD2 and Boston-based rapper Mr. Lif both performed extended sets to make up for Doujah Raze's cancellation.
Mr. Lif, clad in a black cloak, took the stage less than 15 minutes after the announcement that Doujah Raze would not be appearing, accompanied by DJ, rapper and producer Therapy. Lif's 50-minute set included most of his better-known songs and a brief freestyle segment where he traded bars with Therapy. Therapy also performed a solo song, bringing his daughter onstage and rapping several of the verses to her.
Mr. Lif's songs were often intensely political and laced with opportunities for crowd participation to get the audience excited for RJD2's performance. He closed the set with the scathing social critique "Brothaz." As he left the stage, Mr. Lif told the crowd he was going to report to RJD2 how his set went and assured them "I have kind things to say about you all."
About 20 minutes later, RJD2 took the stage alone, saying hardly anything before plunging into the first part of his set. He opened with the familiar strains of Jethro Tull's "Cross-Eyed Mary," artfully melding the classic tune with a number of other samples to create the first of several free-flowing, ever-evolving instrumental pieces.
RJD2's performance was oddly staged - most of his time was spent running back and forth between four turntables and a sampler, scratching a record briefly before tossing it aside and running to set up the next one. In the background bizarre but compelling images and videos were projected onto a screen.
Technical troubles arose when RJD2 tried to switch the projected video to a live feed from an onstage camera so that the audience could get a close up view of what he was playing on his sampler. He realized it was too dark on stage to see anything clearly in the video, and his calls for more light initially went unanswered. After several polite requests, a series of increasingly large bribe offers and a final sarcastic shot - "pretty (expletive) please!" - RJD2 vowed to continue the show regardless, and a few minutes later some stage lights came on.
His set consisted almost exclusively of his older songs, barely touching on material from his most recent album, "The Third Hand." He told The Herald that because the new album was composed with live instruments instead of samples, he rarely performs songs from it when he isn't accompanied by his band.
Students seemed to be fine with the omission of RJD2's more recent work, and by the time he reached "The Horror," the most well-known song from his 2002 debut "Deadringer," students had begun spontaneously crowd-surfing. RJD2 was clearly having a good time himself.
In an interview, RJD2 told a WBRU-FM reporter that he actually preferred the more intimate setting of small shows like Friday night's to the larger shows he sometimes plays.
RJD2's set ended around midnight, almost an hour and a half after it began, but students were clearly satisfied with the performance. "I thought it was great," said Kate Ganim '08. Randall Leeds '09 echoed her sentiment. "That was outrageous," he said.
Students seemed just as impressed with Mr. Lif's performance. "Mr. Lif was (expletive) awesome," said Owen Schmidt '10.
