Dijon, aka Baltimore-bred, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and producer Dijon Duenas, made his TV debut on Wednesday night, performing the opening track from his acclaimed full-length debut Absolutely on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
As we wrote when hailing Dijon’s debut album as one of 2021’s best, “Absolutely has all the ache of an exposed nerve, yet manages the communal warmth of a half-hour house party—Djion recorded its 12 tracks across a few weeks in close quarters with ‘a close-knit group of collaborators and friends,’ per press materials, and listening to it feels like being swathed in that same intimacy, held close somewhere your problems can’t touch you.”
That translates completely in Dijon’s mesmerizing “Big Mike’s” performance: Duenas and his band play in what looks and feels like a living room, gathered around a candle- and lamp-lit table with their instruments, and building the song from barely there to explosive and back again. At one point, the audience breaks into spontaneous applause, then goes pin-drop silent seconds later. All the while, Dijon and company perform as if the Tonight Show aren’t there, and we just happen to be catching a glimpse of a particularly on-point band practice. It’s something special.
Watch Dijon’s “Big Mike’s” performance below.
