You read that correctly – “New Orleans.” Normally I don’t venture out of Los Angeles much, but on this occasion I had the opportunity to catch a show at the House of Blues in New Fucking Orleans, so I had to take it. As luck would have it, DJ Shadow was in town and I had never seen him before.
I’ve heard mixed things about DJ Shadow’s live set and while the Shadowsphere show is pretty cool with its visuals and unique “sphere” set, strip that away and you have a fairly “meh” show. It’s nothing against Shadow, there’s just only so much you can do as a DJ in a live setting without getting guest stars or showering the crowd with free narcotics.
That being said, there ARE visuals and they’re pretty neat. One particular graphic made the sphere look like the Death Star which was a great “HA!” moment.
Shadow also premiered a new song from his upcoming album which is sort of a big deal since album length original material from him has been few and far between since 1996’s Entroducing…