Live Review: Jimothy Lacoste

Only 19 years-old, internet famous, and “looking hella smart”, Jimothy Lacoste played a sold-out show at Manchester’s beloved Soup Kitchen.

The youngster’s fame first came from his viral hit ‘FUTURE BAE’, a song which made the rounds on Twitter and has reached over 430,000 hits on Spotify. The second boom in his fame came with ‘Subway System’,  a tribute to the Tube; the song’s accompanying music video features Jimothy dancing through train carriages and accessing private areas of the tube. This lead to ‘Transport For London’ to issue a takedown request on the video for “imitable behaviour that could cause serious injury.”

The small venue made for an intimate show, opened by the new girl on the block, Mavi Phoenix — an Austrian singer/rapper who is worth keeping on your radar. Jimothy’s set was energetic yet disappointingly short at only 7 songs long; having said this, though, his repertoire only consists of 6 songs on Spotify and just double that on Soundcloud.

His dance moves are just as glorious live as they are online, his singing over lo-fi beats, however, is not. Lacoste’s blatant use of a backing vocal track which was as loud as his microphone definitely detracted from the experience and made for a performance difficult to follow at times. 

Having said that, Jimothy’s showmanship is admirable, leading the crowd in synchronised waving and bouncing drove them insane. The icing on the cake was his shirtless crowd surf which was, of course, incredibly well received by his fans as they flung their arms up to grasp at his form.

The short-lived explosion of energy felt like a sugar rush — short, sweet and one of many. Jimothy will play a show at Gorilla on 10th February. I hope he releases new material before then, otherwise, while “Life Is Getting Quite Exciting”, the show might not.

Rating: 6/10