If you live in the Washington DC area, there was only one place to be Saturday night: at the 9:30 Club catching Chester French's phenomenal performance. CF, along with Hollywood Holt opened for the very bada$$ Lady Sovereign. While they were all amazing, I'm going to focus on Chester French because I <3 them times infinity. :)
After watching CF's performance on Jimmy Fallon, I knew that the energy from them would be off the wall. And I was right.
My friend/assistant Heather and I were in the front row (I was actually able to rest my purse and beer on the stage, ha!) and got to soak up all of that energy as it poured off of DA and Max and flowed over the crowd.
As you know from my previous interview, these two are talented beyond words. DA's voice was smooth and sexy (like buttah!) and that boy can work a tambourine! Max was right in front of me and I got a close-up view of his tight guitar playing while he simultaneously played the keyboard:
Still blows me away! And both of their moves just make you want to get on the stage and dance with them (as three lucky girls got to do. *jealous*)
What I love most about CF, though, is how in-touch they are with their fans. They mingled with the crowd after their perfomance, took tons of pictures with everyone, and were really just so down-to-earth.
The highlight for me was when Max and DA remembered who I was when I said I was "Blonde Blogger." DA even remembered my real name, saying, "Oh, Dawn!" and gave me a huge hug. And just so you know...because you really must know this....DA also called me "sexy." ;)
The only downside of the night is that the pics of me with DA came out so bad. I'll be brave enough to share this one with you:
But the most important picture (Heather and I with DA on CF's tourbus) came out so bad that my husband couldn't stop laughing. It was that bad. *sigh* Of all the pictures, that one was the one that I really needed to turn out good. Oh well...here it is cropped:
Heather is a journalism student so I was thrilled to bring her along with me to interview CF (her first interview ever!).
The intereview is in two parts because a couple of fans walked by and wanted a picture with DA. So I paused while he took the photo. See what I mean? EVERY fan is important to them and treated like a friend.
Finally, I have tried three different hosts for these videos and all of them darken them so much that you cannot see DA's face. Which sucks for you because he has a really cute face. :)
Here is the on-the-street, tourbus-side interview with DA, with a transcript below. DA starts by offering Heather tips for interviewing, then, in the spirit of CF's brand new album "Love the Future," talks about future plans, as well as Mick Jagger and pelvic thrusts. ;)
Part One - Know that my way-too-loud laughter at DA's shout-out to you all was due to the fact that I thought he was making a joke about my blog title. I thought he was referring to himself as the other blonde of "So Two Blondes Walk Into a Blog" because even though he's a (very hot) redhead, there is some blonde there!
And this is just more proof of how sweet he is...when we realized he wasn't joking, he felt so bad that he put his head into his hands and made the most adorable, "I'm so sorry" face. Then he let me shoot a quick correction. But seriously? He could've called my blog "Five Brunettes Walk Into a Phonebook" and I could not adore him any less. :)
Part Two - D.A. explains who inspired his astounding, on-stage energy.
Part Three- D.A. gives a corrected shout out to my readers (you!).
Interview Transcript:
HEATHER: You once tweeted that, when the Lady Gaga show got cancelled in DC, that two of your best shows [that] you’ve ever done were in DC and Richmond. So what is it about DC that made it so memorable for you?
DA WALLACH: DC is just the, the most exuberant city I feel like. For whatever reason, I don’t know if it’s us or if it’s DC, when we came to DC we just played an acoustic show before in a sneaker shop and there were...I was shocked at the number of people who came out because we do it in a lot of different cities, and I was just amazed at the number of people we had supporting us in DC just organically, maybe off the internet or whatever.
But I love DC, I would probably live here if I didn’t live in Wisconsin and you know, I spent summers here a couple of times in high school because I have family out here and it’s just a great place to come.
H: So when will you be headlining your own tour?
DA: I don’t know when we’re going to headline our own tour, it’s a little bit of a mysterious prospect because we’ve never headlined, so we don’t know how many people would come out to see us in a given city. But I think we can safely say we’ll try it in the fall at some point.
H: So you’re really awesome performers.
BLONDEBLOGGER: We’ve noticed you’ve acted really well in all of your interviews, any plans to do SNL, any improv, any kind of acting?
H: Because we would love to see you do that.
DA: Man, we would definitely do SNL in a second. Yeah, we would do SNL in a heartbeat. I mean, we don’t act but we like messing around and having fun and when people put cameras in your faces it’s usually the best option. So, we’re friends, so, so I’m giving you the real genuine side.
H: Who have you seen, that you’ve taken influence from when you perform? Like, what was your first show?
DA: Well, I’ll tell you a show I saw that stays in my mind and remains inspirational, and that is my mom took me, in like sixth or seventh grade, to see The Rolling Stones in Madison, Wisconsin and even at 60 years old, Mick Jagger is running back and forth across the stadium, and dancing his ass of and, you know, not that it competes with The Rolling Stones of the 60’s or 70’s, but I certainly feel like I can’t let a 60 year old man out-energize me every night. I’m not there yet, but I’m aspiring to his level of you know, energy.
BB: Your energy was amazing tonight.
DA: Thank you very much.
H: Yeah, I noticed the thrusts [like] you did on E!
DA: A lot of pelvic thrusts. We do a lot of pelvic thrusts.
H: It’s your signature.
DA: It is my signature. I just like people to know that that whole section is just working, you know what I mean? Just trying to clear the rumors up, you know? It’s all functional.
Functional indeed! Mick Jagger doesn't have a thing on DA!
I'd like to thank 42West for making this review/interview possible, and thanks again to Heather for her assistance. Of course, thanks also goes to DA for the interview and the hugs. :)
Be sure to check out Chester French's website as well as their Twitter accounts. You can also choose from a number of fun packages CF is offering along with their "Love the Future" album here (I so want that safari trip!), and get a free download of CF's "Jaques Jams" mixtape here.
