It’s hard to envision a live show befitting the ethereal, complex production G Jones puts on record. Unless, of course, you were at east end of Ybor City’s Seventh Avenue on Thursday night, where Jones treated Tampa to a rare appearance at the Orpheum.
In October, Greg Jones released his long-awaited LP, The Ineffable Truth. Regarded as one of the most gifted Ableton producers in the industry, the album showcased Jones’ impossible beatmaking chops and an emotional capability that fans had yet to see. The lauded project took the better part of two years to craft, during which time Jones also began to conceptualize a live show to bring such a complicated and intricate work to life on stage.
The Ineffable Truth tour’s second leg kicked off in Orlando on Wednesday, and the Tampa show found Bay area bass fans wrapped in pashminas, tie-dye and widely sporting the logo of Bassnectar — a frequent collaborator of Jones.
South African-producer Chee and fellow Cali-act Tsuruda warmed up a sparse crowd of early birds with trap-y experimental bass music. After midnight the venue began to pack in a little tighter, but still noticeably more comfortable and cooler than The Ritz, which is the more common host for electronic shows in the area. Orpheum’s wide open dance floor gave the audience a perfect view of G Jones’ ornate live production, which kicked off around 12:30 a.m.
The producer made his way to stage amidst a stage blackout, one of the few times the space wasn’t flooded with light. The production layout included two tiers of towered lights on either side of the DJ table, each with ability to rotate and spin around in every direction. Affixed to the ceiling were lasers that sporadically shot beams across the roof and into the second viewing deck. All of this was backed by a giant LED board on stage. Despite the numerous lighting apparatuses, the entirety of the production remained monochrome, echoing the black-and white theme Jones brought to the aesthetic of the album. On Thursday, Jones marinated on the triumphant feat that is The Ineffable Truth, using the album’s 11-song tracklist as the heart of the set. He opened with blinding white lights hitting the stage from every direction, looping in one of the lead tracks from the album, “Different Sound."
Throughout the night Jones would sprinkle in unreleased tracks, collabs and fan-favorites from his catalog (“Helix”,”Fuck What You Heard”) but mostly stuck with his latest work. When the songs weren’t blissfully transitioning into one another, Jones segued with quiet interludes of black and white images and adages that hit not only your senses of sight and sound but of mind.
All too often you felt as if Jones was orchestrating a large machine, as quirky stutters, glitch-ridden builds, beautiful melodies and spastic drops attacked from all directions, making the audience feel as if it were part of a simulation. The 90-minute set came to a close at 2 a.m. when Jones ended with one of the album’s lead singles “In Your Head.” Jones certainly doesn’t make music that’s easy to dance to, but on Thursday he showed that he’s just on another level when compared to everyone else in the EDM game. Rarely were you able to predict the sonic direction he would pursue on stage. The only given was that it would leave you in awe.
This article appears in Feb 7-14, 2019.
