- At the second of two sold out shows for The xx, the air was thick with anticipation. After all, the much ballyhooed upstarts are on the cusp of indie crossover gold, with their self-titled debut album a near ubiquitous presence on last year's critic's lists, their song "Intro" appearing in a high profile AT&T Olympic ad featuring spinach-chinned American short track hero Apolo Anton Ohno and an upcoming gauntlet of festival gigs lined up throughout the summer. With band members barely past their second decade of existence, the precocious now-trio of childhood friends from South London have won praise for their restrained sonic solution of dueling vocals from cooing guitarist Romy Madley Croft and bassist Oliver Sim, and machine beats and percussion from in-house producer Jamie Smith.
Sartorially slick in their trademarked all black ensembles, The xx kicked off the show with "Intro," and followed up with hit single "Crystalised," with Croft to stage left, Sim to stage right and Smith anchored in back. For the sparse expanses that The xx explore, it's the rhythms and spaces in between that carry the most gravity, which makes Smith's live tapping, hitting and smacking of his MPC and assorted gear all the more astonishing. There are no loops at this show. And while Croft's gamely attempted Robert Smith meets Dean Wareham reverbed guitar strumming might be the weakest part of their performance, her voice is pleading, vulnerable and still cool when at its most defiant, and it more than makes do, especially when paired with Sim.
If there are concerns about how such a young and potentially over-hyped trio of cool customers can deliver on the largest of stages, on this night, at this intimate venue, it appeared that The xx are up for the impending task, with the bowel-shaking low end from "Shelter" audibly shaking the fixtures of the sleek, black, new-car-smell interior of Lincoln Hall, and quieting even the chattiest of plus ones. With the crowd at serious attention, The xx showed a well-needed touch of levity by continuing on and mutating "Shelter's" guitar strains from a seemingly improvised jam into an unexpected homage to, of all things, trance throwback "9 PM (Till I Come)," delivered in their trademarked hazy, methadone cool, with Croft bending notes of ATB's familiar Balearic melody into the night, strongly supported all the while with Smith's cocksure beats.
Given the band's age, it seems an odd choice (after all, if you remember the song, you probably remember the tablets of musical enhancement needed to stomach such music circa 1999), but then again, so is singing fondly of memories of watching things on VCR. That'll do, kids, that'll do. And if not, well, based on his performance on stage, producing the album and creating knockout remixes like Florence and the Machine "You Got The Love (The xx Remix)," I'm sure there's an electronic Jamie xx solo project lurking in there, somewhere, too.