Music

The Strokes take Manhattan with the help of renewed grit, Elvis Costello

by Jonathan Dekel

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This past weekend’s back to back shows by The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem at Madison Square Garden mark two important pinpoints in post-millennial music and, more specifically, the musical history of New York City.

The duality of both their careers at this exact moment provides an excellent case study in the latter. Both bands have, over the past decade, come to define and refine what our generation considers hip. We vogued with blasé happenstance as Julian Casablancas and co. delivered the holy spectre of rock in the early aughts and, in turn, we danced ironically, sweating in underground parties, as James Murphy’s biting wit cut through chugging krautrock beats, making his band and label a beacon for Brooklyn and the rise of the post-punk electro dance craze.

Ten years later, the two figureheads go head-to-head in a battle royal for the city they both love and love to hate. And, while there is little doubt that when the last notes of “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” ring out and effectively end LCD Soundsystem’s live career, that the city, audience and twitter will explode with patriotism, as the sun rises on Sunday morning, the true winners for the heart and pulse of the city will be the ones who sold out its biggest venue the night before.

The show, billed as The Strokes’ hometown return to form after five years of relative creative silence, did not disappoint. It was sloppy (Casablancas screwed up both lyrics and timing several times throughout the show), off-the-cuff, energetic and, at times, amateurish; which is to say, perfect.

When First Impressions of Earth—the group’s third and most polished album—came out, many openly wondered if The Strokes had simply lost the street grit on which they built their empire. And perhaps they had. But, with the benefit of time, children and rehab, the group has recaptured their swagger by remembering to simply be a bunch of ‘dudes.’ While Murphy passed 40 and decided he’d had enough of his stained white shirt, the members of The Strokes hit 30 and reclaimed theirs.

To put a firm exclamation point on this issue, Elvis Costello—a former punk who, after sojourns into jazz, country and talk shows, recently also regained his grit—opened the show with a surprise three-song greatest hits set.

Perhaps inspired, Casabalancas came out with a fervour unseen in quite some time: jumping into the audience throughout the performance—and bemoaning them for not ripping him apart—crawling, skipping and posing across the stage as his band members stoically played on and, perhaps most importantly, singing with a clear, haunting voice that came out so surprisingly lucid it sent shockwaves through the historic stadium every time he contorted his face to scream out with impassioned delivery.

Of course, as anyone with a computer knows by now, the evening’s climax came at the end of the hits-heavy set when a re-emergent Costello traded vocals with Casablancas on Costello-aping new track ‘Taken For A Fool.’ And, have no doubt, it was nothing short of monumental; taking the group back to the future in a way that it’s been aiming for since its humble beginnings as uppity Velvet Underground devotees.

As The Strokes ended their show, as always, with “Take It or Leave It” and Casablancas euphorically and physically embraced his public, it seemed to galvanize the differences between the weekend’s MSG headliners. While Murphy caught the zeitgeist of New York’s ironic detachment, Casablancas—its son who no longer calls the city home—is still trying to find new ways of loving it.