Concert Report – XXYYXX with Joywave
On
Saturday 13, 2014, I attended a concert with some friends at Emerson Suites at
Ithaca College. The opening band called Joywave, and the main performance was
XXYYXX. According to Wikipedia.com,
Joywave’s music is described as “indie rock” and “alternative rock” while
XXYYXX’s music is described as “electronic”, “hip hop”, “post-dubstep”, and
more.
Joywave’s
music was very intriguing to me. Although I have not been educated on the
origins of indie music, I observed that their music seemed to be very modern.
On stage, there was a lead singer, guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards. XXYYXX
seemed to be even more “modern” than Joywave. Again, I am not very educated on
the type of music that XXYYXX produced, but it seems that in society, today, a
popular genre of music is electronic. Teenagers and young adults call this “rave”
music. This includes dubstep-like music that is produced by a computer, not a
band. The general feel of the concert is party-like and dance-like. It seems
that XXYYXX is similar to this type of music, but mellower.
The
music that Joywave made had a long-lasting impression on me. In fact, I am
currently listening to them right now as I write this report. Although they
were not your typical acoustic-like band and sound a bit more produced than
normal, they still had the “band” feel to me. For each song, I tried to watch
one member of the band and their role in the song. What intrigued me the most
was the member that played the keyboard. Not only did he play the keyboard, but
he also had a computer with which he produced electronic-like sounds. The lead
singer, as well, caught my attention. The way he performed was very interesting
and I could tell that he was passionate about what he was singing. There were
definite lyrics in the songs, but at some points, it seemed that the singer was
purposefully trying not to annunciate the words so that they created a kind of
mysterious aura within the song – maybe allowing it to be open for
interpretation. One of my favorite songs that they played, “Now”, caught my
attention and had me discussing it with my friends afterwards. During the
middle of the song, the pace slowed from a relatively fast rhythm to a much
slower rhythm. When they played this part at the concert, everyone cheered
because it was amazing to listen to. For most of the song, I had been swaying
back and forth to the beat, but when they slowed it down, it was all of a
sudden, but really fit in with the feel of the song.
Overall,
I loved Joywave and continue to talk about their performance with my friends
who attended the concert with me. Their music kept me listening – it was not
exactly predictable, which I loved. They were very different than any other
concert I had been to and I hope to see them again!
After
Joywave left the stage, XXYYXX entered and there was only one person up there.
He had no “instruments”; only his computer and what seemed like an array of
dials and switches. For the most part, the music was consistent – very electronic-like
and with an obvious beat. There was rarely ever singing or human voice in the
songs and there were no breaks between songs. Because the rhythm was constantly
changing, I was very attracted to that part of the music. There were all sorts
of sounds produced by the computer that all fit together to create a type of
dubstep/electronic sounding piece. I noticed that there was rarely ever
repetition with the songs. For example, unlike some artists who just lay down a
beat and have it play over and over again, XXYYXX would create a beat with some
other sounds, but he wouldn’t play it more than an average of two times without
changing something else in the music. If this hadn’t been the case, I think
that the music would have been extremely boring.
In
the long run, I enjoyed listening to Joywave more than XXYYXX. I think this is
because Joywave had actual instruments up on stage with them, making them seem
more band-like. Also, they had lyrics and followed the same musical rules that
we have been studying in class with respect to folk music. Compared to folk
music, both Joywave and XXYYXX were very different. I would say that XXYYXX was
more different, though, because the two styles are almost completely opposite. Folk
music is usually very simple and portrays a story. The music that XXYYXX played
was produced by a computer and did not have any lyrics. For this reason, the
audience had to come up with their own story to go along with this music,
making it more personal for them. Although I enjoyed listening to Joywave
better than XXYYXX, I think both performances were great and I am glad that I
went!
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