Sitting in his favorite East London cafe, Jamie Smith is nervous. Tonight, he will headline his biggest ever show as Jamie xx at Brixton Academy.
"I'm enjoying playing live on my own," he says, "but it’s stressful. People are there to watch to me as well as listen. I know for a fact watching a DJ who is charismatic and dancing makes me want to dance and get into it more. Once I’m into it, it’s fine. But walking onstage and instantly being into it, that’s the tough bit. I live on nerves, basically."
Such a statement won't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Smith's career with any degree of scrutiny. As a founding member of The xx, he was thrust into a limelight he was unprepared when the band’s magnificent self-titled debut became the year’s alternative soundtrack. In a rare example of the Mercury Prize judges finding themselves simpatico with critical opinion, The xx walked away with the 2010 award. The abiding memory of the night was Smith and bandmates Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, all recently out of their teens, visibly recoiling in discomfort at the media’s glare.