Ross Staadecker 
Ross Staadecker
NEFFEX at House of Blues – Cleveland, OH – 11/29/23
Fan Review by Ross Staadecker
Last night at House of Blues, Cleveland wasted time and money.
The night began with a “DJ” / opener act, which was atrocious. The crowd had no choice but to watch a man awkwardly dance to his Spotify playlist. This guy was no “DJ.” Let’s call him a “playlist specialist,” so he can at least have a title. HOB would have been more crowd-pleasing to have had no act and just played background music.
This playlist specialist (”PS”) was far from entertaining and played music that was not fitting for the crowd. If he had been paying attention to the crowd instead of his ego, he might have noticed the majority were unresponsive and bored out of their freaking minds.
When combining the “PS’s” past due departure from the stage to the 40 minutes of watching three men who had no idea what they were doing concerning the “technical difficulties,” my party of three and those around us were beyond exhausted.
To top it off, the “PS” thought playing Neffex songs for the crowd would keep them engaged. What a moronic thing to do. So, maybe he shouldn’t earn the title of Playlist Specialist.
Don’t tell the crowd until 25 minutes later that there are technical difficulties, then spend another 20 working on it while playing songs from a sound system for the same artist they paid to see live 45 minutes ago.
A girl in a black shirt and hat (I couldn’t tell if she was wearing anything beyond the end of the shirt) was standing there, endlessly, on stage, messing around on her phone, which was super weird.
Way past due, enters Neffex, “rapping” like a teenager with no skills who’s trying to make a killing on American Idol, leaving Simon to tell him that while his flowing long hair was very nice, it didn’t offset his trash-bar-karaoke singing.
Maybe it’s just me, but a word to the crowd about the wait would have been a better way to start. Ignoring the lack of his crew’s ability to get things fixed was beyond rude to the crowd.
And why the Hell were the systems not checked before the show? Did they not have backup equipment? Why were three guys unequipped to be in charge of something like this? And, mostly, what was so complicated? It’s one guy and a mic!!
Three songs in, all while the “PS” kept yelling “yeah,” “uhh,” and “Cleveland” over top of Neffex at totally off-beat moments and the girl in black just dancing in place, we had witnessed enough of this teenage-esqe talent show failure, and decided to leave.
We were there for three hours to watch the main act sound like trash for less than eight minutes.
What a scam of a night.
