Rochelle Jordan was a fun night in Portland, though not one of my faves from this year.
Blossom
R&B artist based in Portland. Backed by a producer also from Portland.
She performed a few originals and also a trio of freestyles, asking a few audience members in the front for topics to mention in each freestyle. The first two of these were cute and well-performed given the impromptu nature. The third was fairly gross; she went into this pop-punk style reminiscent of the early 2000s and it sounded awful with her voice not blending well with the GarageBand quality instrumental paired with cringy impromptu lyrics. It honestly soured my feelings on her set significantly.
Decent overall if I were to erase that last bit from my memory.
Rochelle Jordan
Pretty fun, although likely the shortest headliner I've attended ever since I started going to shows by myself in '19. Duration couldn't have been more than ~50min with encore.
She performed about half of the newest,
Play With the Changes, and a few bangers from way back. She had a couple of interactions with holding hands of a few of the upfront peeps in the audience and pointing at a few of those that were feverishly grooving to the songs. Little to no in between chit-chat, probably the reason for the very short concert time.
Fun show, though nothing too overly exciting. One suggestion for next time would be to include at least three more songs to push her set to the hourlong mark. She easily could've included more cuts from the new record.
Post-show
No pressure of needing to leave Holocene early for this show; no immediate events planned on the same night. So predictably, a good 20 or so hung around near the front to get hugs and photos with Rochelle after she took a few minutes to unwind. No merch where the merch table would normally be, although I saw three dudes ahead of me getting vinyl and CDs brought from home to be signed.
Got my brought from home copy of
Play With the Changes signed and a few hugs from her as well. Forgot to request a photo together...darn. Wished her safe travels for the rest of the tour and headed out.
EDIT: removed extra photo attachment