Music

Concert review: RJD2 brings the beats—and the horns—to the Bunkhouse

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RJD2, er, Commissioner Crotchbuttons, gets the crowd moving Friday night at the Bunkhouse.
Photo: Adam Shane
Max Plenke

Four stars

RJD2 November 21, Bunkhouse Saloon.

It was like watching a man do arithmetic in a burning house, seeing RJD2 on Friday night. His needles wouldn’t stay put. Something on his two-drum-machine/four-turntable sonic buffet was going wrong at most times. Still, the behemoth rhythms he detonated onstage exploded forth, never missing a beat, a drop, an “oh sh*t” moment.

His only tell was a grinning face, a mouthed “f*ck” to the sound crew. The audience didn’t mind. They’d been won over earlier when Commissioner Crotchbuttons—RJ’s welding-masked, jump-suit-wearing alter ego named for the drum machine, spinning ZZ Top-style, harnessed at his belt—opened the set with some Akira Ifukube “Gojira tai Mosura” samples, better-known by the crowd as the beat from Pharoahe Monch’s “Simon Says (Get the F*ck Up)”. When the problems were fixed, we found what was missing. The horns. The sweet, beautiful, watt-soaked horns. The Show had finally started.

It wasn’t just the memorable horns from Deadringer’s “Ghostwriter” and Since We Last Spoke’s “1976.” These were trumpets culled from the deep, fracking the catalog for all things terrible and colossal, the man whose parents named him Ramble Jon Krohn showing the beginning of a smile every time a new pile of brass poured through the monitors. It was the kind of stage presence you pay for at the Strip clubs but never receive. It was impossibly good.

Despite the near perfection of RJD2’s performance, biting at his heels was the new project of Brett Bolton, Kitze + The CPUs, celebrating its second show. After his former group Kid Meets Cougar’s disband, and a wealth of design projects, to say Bolton’s grasp of his now-signature interactive stage design is on point is like saying the Chicago Marathon is just a brisk jog. It was recognizable, but updated, stronger, more digital, and with a goddamn “Thong Song” cover. His groove: found.

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