Los Angeles, CA- As the year winds down, I take stock of all of the shows that I’ve attended and organize the notes and photos that I’ve taken from each outing. I go to a lot of shows… perhaps too many… and there will be times when I neglect posting thoughts and galleries on acts that I’ve caught because they may not have been the act that I was tasked to report on and I simply didn’t have enough time at that moment. Well… now that I have a bit of time, I get to remedy that problem.
Performing an opening set for Nick Hakim at the Echoplex was the recording artist Jimmy Whispers. If I had to describe him and his performance in one word, that word would be “eccentric”. His music was interesting enough- a lo-fi offering of introspective pop songs sung with a frail Thom York tonal quality- but I found myself paying more attention to his stage antics than to his music.
When he took to the stage, the first thing I immediately noticed was that he was dressed in a white, velour (I’m guessing) one piece number that made me think I was witnessing a Barry Manilow revival circa the 1970s. He approached his performance with a carefree, nonchalant air. Whether lounging about on the monitors set upstage, or tussling the hair of men standing up front while he sang, I was definitely more intrigued by his eccentric confidence than with the music he was actually performing.
At one point, he jumped off stage and made his way to the bar, where he mounted the same to sing parts of a song. He then implored those around him to play the “trust game” that allowed him to fall backward off the bar to be caught willing participants.
While perhaps the music itself may not have been enough to intrigue me, the overall performance, which was cooky and eccentric, was.
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Jimmy Whispers at Echoplex 10/19/17 pic.twitter.com/yGnz9QOxLT
— Derrick K. Lee (@methodman13) December 7, 2017
