PHOTO BY HENRY SAVAGE
Last night at World Cafe Live, the age range of the audience was so diverse it was likely you saw your mom’s tennis partner Regina and the neighborhood pest Shane who just started high school. That’s the appeal of Darwin Deez, regardless of who you are, he’s still going to have you on your feet and bouncing to his indie pop hits. If you aren’t dancing as hard as he is, he’ll drop down into the crowd to show you how.
Even his opener brought fire to the stage, Soren Bryce, a badass electronic pop musician that was accompanied by her early twenty-something ensemble of hip millennials. At one point when the crowd of clamoring teenagers in the front row wouldn’t stop talking through her set, Bryce let ‘em hear it. “WE TRAVELED ALONG WAY TO BE HERE, I HOPE YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TALK THROUGH THE WHOLE THING,” Bryce bellowed at the crowd. Audience inattention didn’t stop Bryce, as she and the band plowed forward, head banging through the amps crackling and Bryce’s energy in full force.
In retrospect though, when half the audience is 17 years old, it’s hard not to expect some attention deficit to occur. You know it’s a young audience when you see a mom weave through the crowd to ask her son if he needs his sweater. Yes. That happened. And for that, show moms everywhere, we thank you.
As the four piece band took stage they lined up shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the crowd, as if they were about to perform Village People’s “YMCA.” That’s when DJ Telly Tellz’s FUCK IT UP CHALLENGE, an urban dance craze popularized through social media, blasted through the speakers and the four of them embarked on a fit of hard stomping, swirling dance moves that had the whole crowd FUCKING IT UP with them.
Darwin went through most of his catalog, dipping in between his self titled album all the way through his newest efforts, 10 Songs That Happened When You Left Me With My Stupid Heart. Throughout the set, he would interlude to similar dance routines that kept the crowds energy high and towards the end Deez even waded through the audience playing his guitar to the swarm of teens trying to get a photo for the Snapchats. Deez maybe in his thirties, but he knows how to keep a room of teenagers and decade-long fans entertained and feel like their part of the same community. — HENRY SAVAGE