So last night, the folks at new NYC hotspot Le Baron decided to host a very private and very secret performance from Brooklyn's own Theophilus London. This was my first time being inside the newly opened Chinatown club/lounge so I'm kind of feeling myself for getting to go inside in the first place. Here's how it all went down...
Theo London is on the rise, so basically you can either jump on board the success train of this talented artist or get out of the way. He’s “so hot right now,” and you can tell by the fact that he pretty much performed and DJed at every possible party and show for Fashion Week this past week; he turned Fashion Week into his own personal CMJ!
Always a master of the art of the Internet, he uses his Twitter as a way to get his friends and fans that are followers to check out his free and cool secret shows. Case in point, me getting to partake in his Bing commercial which was shot at Le Bain a month or so ago, that then aired during the Grammys. Or, for more recent occurrences, last night, at Le Baron.
All day yesterday the musician posted about this secret show he was doing at Le Baron, and eventually decided to tell his followers that there was a password necessary to get in (I learned today that that password was “watts”). By the time we arrived however, we didn’t know what the password was. In hindsight, clearly I could have just looked at his Twitter to figure it out, but alas, hindsight is 20/20. We did have an invite though, which didn’t have an RSVP link (because of course the show had a guest list) but we figured out invite was enough. It wasn’t.
We weren’t on the list, and we also didn’t have the password. What were we to do? Well let’s just skip ahead to us getting inside. Sometimes, a little patience does help.
Le Baron’s décor is red, and black, and despite the name, it has an Asian theme; I guess it is in Chinatown after all. It’s 3 floors, with DJ booths on the first floor (where Theo was spinning when we arrived) and also in the basement, which has seats as well as a dance floor. The cocktail waitresses walk around in matching red kimonos, sticking with the theme of the place. The upstairs is table service, which was “reserved” last night for the event. We sat up there anyway.
At around 10pm, Theo took to the small stage with his band backing him and went into some tracks from his new album ‘Lover’s Holiday II: Rose Island’ and also off of his current LP ‘Timez are Weird These Days’. He went into “I Stand Alone,” “One Tree,” and also asked the ladies in the house, “Why Even Try,” which happens to be one of my favorite Theo tracks. I saw the dude Telli Gramz from Ninjasonik in Le Baron last night as well. I also think Reverend McFly was there, but they didn’t perform with Theo (I of course asked Tillie if he was going to), they were in the house just jamming, like myself.
Of course Theo dropped “Last Name London,” and then later played a really cool remix of it I’d never heard. He even found time to give Le Baron a taste of his new track that is getting some big time buzz, “Big Spender,” which features another NYC artist who is on the rise as well, A$AP Rocky. “Big Spender,” which I heard first at the Bing commercial shoot at Le Bain, has one of the sickest beat breakdowns and samples I’ve ever heard. That is, EVER. And in prime Theo London fashion, he rides the beat like a pro, even inviting some friends on stage to jam out with him last night. I of course obliged, because dancing around on stage to one of my favorite songs is something that I have no problem doing.
He ended the energy filled set with “Always Love You,” his dance ode to Whitney, who he almost didn’t perform last night, but a fan asked him to perform it (for reasons that should be obvious right now) and he jumped right back on stage and finished off his lineup the right way. After it was all said and done he jumped back onto the turntables to spin some more tunes for his fans that made it inside.
The night was awesome and I’m glad I got to see Theo perform as well as check out a brand new spot all in the same night. Even without this global warming thing making the temperature way hotter than in should be, it’s definitely going to be a hot summer for the guy whose last name is London, first name Theophilus.
Clint ZER0
https://twitter.com/#!/ClintWWCD
