Over the years few producers have had the same appeal as Charlie Yin a.k.a. Giraffage. His productions have found the middle ground between the derivative mainstream zeitgeist and fringe-like irrelevance. In the past I have always characterized a Giraffage performance as a bit cheeky. His sets often injected a sense of humor by including songs like “Who Let the Dogs Out” and even a remix of the original iPhone ringtone. Whenever an electronic artist performs a “live” set I always have high expectations. It was abundantly clear that Giraffage bodied his “live” show. His stage set-up included not only a 7-foot high LED wall for visual projections but he surrounded himself with circular neon rings almost to create a spherical lens effect around him akin to a James Bond opening sequence. Overall, the presentation was pristine and immersive. Each of the LED visuals seamlessly reflected the essence of the song selection. There were animals and 8-bit video game characters for his lighter tracks and skulls and flames when the music took a darker turn. Nothing seemed predictable or redundant. The venue (The Fonda Theater) added some great texture to the evening as each bass drop was accompanied by on-beat floor rumbles and the finely tuned acoustics left nothing more to be desired of the intimate atmosphere.
The set started out slow and built nicely throughout his almost hour and twenty minute run-time. The kawaii vibes were ratcheted up to 100 as the anime-esque visuals blended perfectly with each hi-hat and cord progression as each note felt very in place. A major high point of the night was when Giraffage dropped “Be With You”. The set seemed to have a very strong love-song driven narrative to it and “Be With You” was the characterizing crescendo among the already stellar track selection he employed. All in all the show was the perfect ending point for the Too Real tour. The crowd was electrified and left wanting more. That performance won’t soon be forgotten and we can’t wait to see what tricks Charlie has up his sleeve in the near future.
Giraffage//
