jj and The XX @ The Varsity 4/9/2010

First thing I noticed when walking into The Varsity Theater on Friday night was the diverse crowd of people. You had everyone from your typical hipsters to Jersey Shore fist pumpers. We hadn't been to The Varsity in a few months and it was nice to see all they've done with the place. It's turning into a great venue to see a show. Cool atmosphere.

We got there just in time to see jj. Now I am a pretty big fan of jj on CD but I was unsure what to expect live. jj's set up consisted of the singer, a laptop, a screen showing either nature videos or jj tour footage and a random surfer dude that kept walking up on stage to do who knows what. The singer sounded great but she looked bored as hell, which I'm sure she was just stoned out of her mind.

Time for The XX. The XX set started with a white sheet covering the stage and they were back lit projecting their silhouettes on the sheet. Extremely cool intro. The band sounded great, each song was powered by infections bass groves and sexy vocals. The light show was definitely the 4th member of that band, the lighting added a great ambiance to the evening. Mary kept joking that everyone was going to start taking off their clothes during the show, I wouldn't have been surprised if it happened. They played around 12 songs including a 1 song encore.