Photos: Chester French at House of Blues

Published Mar 31 2009, 01:13 PM by Carly Carioli

We fully support a moratorium on claiming Boston pride for bands that formed at colleges here and then moved away before their graduation Starbucks lattes had time to cool. But damned if we're gonna be the ones to make that move unilaterally. Which means that for the time being we're repping CHESTER FRENCH, if only because the core duo's degrees from Harvard allow us to bask in the glow of CF's close personal friendships with Kanye West, Paris Hilton, Diddy, and a bunch of other people who would otherwise never associate themselves with kids who hang out at the Coop. Also, the Chester French dudes are mad twitterers. In about 100 hours, the French kids drop a Clinton Sparks-helmed mixtape, Jacques Jams Vol 1: Endurance, which may or may not be a tribute to the local tranny bar. We can only hope. If not, it's still the only "Boston" "album" this decade to feature guest appearances by Diddy, Pharrell (who's already signed the Chesters to his Star Trak label), Bun B, Cassie, and the Clipse. Sign up to get first crack at it over here.

More importantly, last night Chester French played their first Boston gig in almost forever -- opening for Lady GaGa at the House of Blues. Our own Dan Brockman weighs in from the scene:

Chester French were ridiculous, constantly walking a fine line between being experts at crowd-woo'ing and being cringe-inducingly awful. The main dude had a pretty painful stage demeanor and a limited vocal range, and they would consistently get the crowd worked up only to lunge into some super-lame chorus or verse that would Ben-Folds-Five the audience into fits of talking-amongst-themselves. Then at the end of their set they did a cover of No Doubt's "Hella Good" that got the audience going, ran through an instrumental verse or two of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" (well, really Breakwater's "Release the Beast"), before closing with an honest-to-god awesome cover of Aerosmith's cover of "Remember (Walking in the Sand)." What?!?! I was relatively impressed. At one point the singer prattled on about their dealings with Pharrell and all I could think is "why?" Seriously, they were dork city. But the Aerosmith cover of a cover was tight. At one point they said something about their last show in Boston having been several years before at Harpers Ferry in front of 5 people. I could see that.
-- Dan Brockman

Filed Under: House of Blues Boston, Chester French

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3 Comments

CF Fan said:

First of all, their set was awesome, second, their last Boston gig was at the Orpheum opening for N.E.R.D. and Common, and third, you are an idiot Brockman.

March 31, 2009 4:59 PM
Carly Carioli said:

CF Fan: Brockman's quoting the band. Soooo . . . blame them if they couldn't remember the last time they'd played here.

April 1, 2009 12:06 PM

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Photos: Chester French at House of Blues

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Carly Carioli said:

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