There’s a first time for everything – chucking from drinking too much, not chucking from drinking too much, losing your virginity (read into it that what you will). Well, here’s a first for me; my first negative review.
Having written only glowing DJ and hip hop reviews for the past three years, I now have the sad responsibility of bagging a musician. That’s right, Rye Rye from the eminent Diplo’s Mad Descent label put on a show at Miss Libertines that was – to be honest – pretty freakin’ average. It was late, short, and worst of all, completely without love. That said, it would be wrong to throw out the Miss Libertine baby with the Rye Rye bathwater. It’s certainly worth talking about what was good about the night.
First, Miss Libertines. With its always-lovely staff, the venue provided a great backdrop for the night. The sound system was spot on, as were the visuals; the video montage of pre-‘Flavor of Love’ Flava Flav was certainly in-line with the vibe of the evening. Next, the warm-up act Ooh-Ee. He put on quite a set and ended up playing about an hour more than scheduled. Of course that gave him plenty of time to demonstrate the diversity of his collection, and apart from a few botched mixes he put together a rollicking set. His track selection took us from the 80s through to today and back again, with tracks like Young MC’s ‘Bust a Move’, Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’, MGMT’s ‘Electric Feel’, M.I.A’s ‘Bucky Done Gun’ and Technotronic’s ‘Pump up the Jam’.
Finally, we move on to Rye Rye. To start with she came on 90 minutes late, which – given her rock star aspirations – is entirely forgivable and even to be encouraged. What is far less forgivable, however, is the way she raced through her set and more or less ignored the audience, showing minimal interest in being there at all. Rye Rye sported hot pink hair, a patterned jacket that featured every neon colour under the sun, and a very tight pair of jeans.
Her set started off with the banging ‘Shake It To The Ground’. It was quickly followed by ‘Wassup, Wassup’, which was just as soon followed by ‘Hardcore Girls’. This effectively formed her pattern for the show; song-drink-talk to the DJ, song-drink-talk to the DJ. No audience interaction, no DJ demonstrations, no pausing for breath… After about 10 minutes you got the impression that she was just trying to get through it all as quickly as possible. This was confirmed another 10 minutes later when she announced; “This is my last song Melbourne”. A quick one-verse track followed, and she was gone.
There’s no doubt Rye Rye is one hell of a performer. Her smile is as bright as her big gold hoop earrings, and when she dances she takes the lawnmower to a new level. And, most importantly, her songs P-U-M-P. Given the way she combines these positives with her tardiness, disdain for the audience and lack of effort in her performance, I can only come to one conclusion; we are witnessing the rise of a rock star.
