Showtime: David Choi @ Jammin Java – 2/18/10

We’re starting up a new feature segment here at a-Tunes.net called ‘Showtime’ (not to be confused with our segment ‘Showdown’). This is where we go to the shows of the very artists we post about here and report back to you on the whole experience. So for those of you who aren’t able to catch some of these artists live, hopefully this will serve as some type of consolation =).

Our inaugural Showtime features the youtube favorite David Choi, who has won over masses of fans over via his popular youtube channel, and connected with people around the world using the wonders of social networking and online media. Since David is one of the first artists to parlay an online fan base into one big enough to support national and international tours, we were excited to hear he was finally coming to a venue near (one of) us on his east coast tour that wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

Continue to read about our experience along with some performance footage after the jump!

So with that we headed out one cold Thursday evening to the venue, a well known local spot called Jammin Java. We got there fairly early but the spot had already began to fill up with the free seats already limited to those near the back. The place is pretty dark and seated perhaps a 100ish or so people so it quickly became a bit crowded and by the time the David came up on stage all the new comers were forced to stand or sit on stools in the back. Of course, at first sight of Mr Choi, the room filled with female screams and David interacted with the crowd for a few minutes, thanking us for the support and explaining that this was the first stop on his tour. The stage wasn’t huge, but decently sized though it was just David and a stool and a guitar for the entire show.

Within minutes David went into his song set, starting off with a few new numbers from his upcoming album, usually stopping to chat for a few seconds in between each selection. It became ever more apparent that the room was filled with more female fans than not, in addition to many of them being in the teenage demographic but overall there was still a decent variety of people. After roughly 8 songs or so, we stopped for intermission where many crowded the stage for a chance to meet and talk with David while others wandered over to the bar/food counter and merch table.

The second half was similar to the first, but by this point David had clearly loosened up a little bit and began to more visibly enjoy himself. There were a couple fun back and forth with the audience, including an impromptu discussion on the term “Guido” and how it’s actually a racially charged word. By the time he came to his last song of the night he had much of the fans engrossed. When he announced he would be closing with the fan favorite ‘Wont Even Start’ (MV produced by Wong Fu), the erupted with (female) cheer. Some of the audience audibly sang along making it a memorable close to the overall pleasant show.

I wouldn’t say this was the most amazing show I’ve attended, but what made it special is seeing the transition from online youtube fans to actual, visible and audible people. It’s crazy to see how far David’s come in the past couple years as his fan base continues to grow and expand. It’s clear that David’s still got some nerves to shake off, and he has yet to completely grow from engaging a webcam to engaging an entire room when performing, but he did an admirable job and overall it was an enjoyable event. David definitely has more charisma live than he does in his studio recordings. With that said we hope he’ll be able to go from performing at large coffeehouses today, to headlining events at stadiums and arenas tomorrow.

As a treat, here’s a clip of him performing his song ‘Something to Believe’ from his album Only You.