Julius C @ Highline Ballroom

On Sunday night I had a chance to see Julius C play in probably the biggest venue I've ever seen them play in - Highline Ballroom. They were playing as part of a benefit for JWOC (which apparently means Journeys Within Our Community, which I had a hard time figuring out because they didn't say it once at the event). Unfortunately, Julius C also had a show on Friday, which I suspect a lot more of their fans went to, as the audience was a lot different than usual and didn't seem as familiar with Julius C.

Julius C still put on a great, high energy show. Lots of their newer songs, plus a few older favorites. Lead singer Jay did an old new song - a song he wrote when he was 18 - and the bass player, keyboardist and drummer did their new instrumental funk song that they did last time I saw them. They also did covers, which is pretty rare for Julius C - or at least, if they've done covers in the past I didn't know the songs to begin with. They did a medley consisting of a whole lot of different artists from James Brown to Justin Timberlake. I can't even remember half of the artists. And there was a wild dance party on stage for the last half of the show, which was fun at first but then got old and I kind of just wanted them to let Julius C do their thing.

I missed the first band that played, but the band that went on before Julius C was called Linfinity. I really liked quite a few of their songs, but their performance was flat. They all lacked energy, except for the lead singer, who seemed like he was high on something. The violinist didn't smile once until the end of the performance as she was exiting the stage. They just didn't really look like they wanted to be there. The lead singer's voice was interesting, but I found I only liked it during their more upbeat rock songs. During the slower songs it was like he was purposely making it shake, which I didn't understand and didn't think it added anything. In fact it just made him sound nervous or off-key (or maybe high again...) They had some great upbeat rock songs though, that were at least fun to listen to, though the performance wasn't all that engaging to watch.

Highline Ballroom is a nice space. The lighting guy seemed like he was having a blast and he came up with all sorts of cool lighting designs. Unfortunately the one thing he never lit was the front of the band, so you couldn't really see their faces most of the time. That was kind of frustrating. Especially for taking pictures (though it inspired me to invest in a good low-light lens, so hopefully I'll be getting that soon). Even though the pictures didn't turn out that great, you can see them here.

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