Where are your friends tonight?

Review of LCD Soundsystem @ 013, Tilburg.

At the Modest Mouse concert, that's where my friends are. This is also the reason I happen to be at the LCD Soundsystem gig: a friend of mine had bought tickets for both Modest Mouse and LCD Soundsystem, and ultimately decided to go see Modest Mouse. The LCD concert wasn't sold out and therefore being unable to sell the ticket(s), my friend decided to offer me one for free. As it was rather last minute and seeing I had to get up at 5 the next morning, it took some contemplation whether to take the ticket or not. Eventually I decided that I should not be as stupid to turn down a 25 euro ticket (I am still Dutch after all) and just go, especially considering the recent threats of them quitting.

After rushing to 013 in Tilburg, James Murphy & co (or rather in the order: co and James Murphy) mount the stage at 9 o’clock, which is half an hour later than promised on the 013 website. The well-known beats of the tune ‘Us v Them’ fill the room and James Murphy remarks he’s happy to do a clubshow after a summer of touring festivals (it has only been a few weeks since I saw them at Lowlands), because they can now play more than 5 songs for a change. This obviously results in applause.

The two-hour set consists of a nice mixture of old and new songs, among which ‘Movement’, ‘Tribulations’, ‘Yr City Is A Sucker’, ‘All Your Friends’, ‘Yeah’, ‘Drunk Girls’ and ‘I Can Change’. However, the crowd, an interesting combination of youngsters and people who could be their (terribly cool) parents (they all somehow seemed to be Wayne Coyne lookalikes), didn’t put on their dancing shoes until ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’, which proves to stay the most anticipated of their alternative disco/electro tracks.

The climax of the gig for me however, is when they play ‘Losing My Edge’, possibly my favourite LCD Soundsystem track, which expresses a ‘Been there, done that/I have seen it all’-attitude, as well as an admiration for the talent of the threatening ‘kids coming up from behind’. Murphy once explained the song was about himself; when he was a DJ he felt incredibly cool, and when he was out of job, he was afraid the feeling was going away, whereas he didn’t play any songs he created, just tracks by other people . The whole song is a play on Murphy feeling silly and horrified about his attitude.
The great sarcastic punchline of the song; ‘I hear that everybody you know, is more relevant than everybody I know’ is made more aggressive live by changing some of the words, such as the last part: ‘[…] is more relevant than all these FUCKERS I know’. For some reason the line ‘I hear your band has sold their guitars to buy turntables / I hear your band has sold their turntables to buy guitars’ is changed into ‘ […] / I hear your band has sold their turntables to buy dvdplayers’. Say huh?

James Murphy, predictably dressed in his usual tight white t-shirt and jeans, always appears to be a perfectionist to me. He is constantly checking out the equipment, signaling to the crew his microphone needs to be tuned and it often happens to be poor Nancy Whang who is the subject of James’ neurotic scrutiny. Pat Mahoney on the other hand is the teacher’s pet tonight, as Murphy constantly demands applause for his magnificent, shorts-wearing drummer. Also, some physical difficulties become visible when James grabs his leg halfway through the gig, and while trying to do some stretching he explains he has hurt his back during the tour, and now has pains in his leg, something he attributes to the inconveniences of getting older.

In the 3-song encore we are treated to ‘Pow Pow’ and the concert is finished off by ‘New York I Love You’ mixed with a bit of the song ‘New York State Of Mind’ by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. Despite the mere 4 hours of sleep that followed after the gig, which in combination with a night of partying in Amsterdam the night after I now blame for me being ill, it was SO worth the free ticket, and hey it might just be the last we get to see of them (for a while). Maybe I should send Isaac Brock a thank you card or something?

About Patti Smith last night

Maybe the Union Chapel has some magic impact on me or something, because so far two of the best gigs I've been to this year took place there (the other one being the Antlers). Patti Smith managed to give me goosebumps throughout the whole 90 minute lasting concert and surprised us with some amazing guest performers.

Patti Smith arrives on stage - with her long hair, big coat and beanie - looking like an old tramp, an image that suits the first passage she reads from her new autobiography 'Just Kids'; in which she describes leaving home to go to New York, where she doesn't know anyone and sleeps on streets and in subway stations.

After this first passage it's time for 'a costume change', and she takes of the coat and beanie, as a kick-off for the concert I assume. She introduces her 'second guitarist/pianist/tour manager/roadie/driver' Tony Shanahan and invites 'some local boys' on stage; a drummer who I don't know, and no one less than mr. Patrick Wolf (who has exchanged his tight golden trousersnake suit, filthy long blonde hair and blue glitter eye make-up for a blue suit and a short blonde haircut), which was an incredibly pleasant surprise to me. He continued to support her on the violin for the whole evening. Later in the evening she was also joined by another musician worthy to mention: Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine.



The night mainly consisted of Patti promoting her book 'Just Kids', by reading several passages from it (mostly about her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, as that's what the book is about) and her and the band playing good old songs like 'My Blakean Year', 'Redondo Beach', 'Birdland', 'Dancing Barefoot' 'Wing' and 'Because The Night', followed by an encore of two songs ('The Jackson Song' and 'People Have The Power'), one for both of her children.



Another one of her anecdotes was about her meeting beat poet Allen Ginsberg, in a café where he offered her money so she could buy food. They sat a table and started talking, until Ginsberg came to realize: 'Wait... are you a girl?', having mistaken her for a pretty young boy... They remained friends ever since.

Patti still sounds amazing (especially considering her age and the fear of the Bob Dylan effect, as I mentioned in the previous post) and I really enjoy her reading voice. She also seemed very friendly and relaxed, even though she said she was nervous and got lost a couple of times during the reading bits. She made up for that by mocking herself: ' "Patti Smith seemed distracted throughout the evening, but still managed to give a great performance [...]" ' and when she fucked up during the first passage; 'This first part was in fact the part I practiced the most... so you can get a feeling of what the whole night is going to be like...'. She was actually very funny, making witty jokes throughout the evening.



Ultimately, the whole evening was very satisfying and I can officialy say I can relate to Nick Hornby's essay '31: Patti Smith - Pissing In A River'. Patti's performance was convincing enough to let me leave the Union Chapel with a signed copy of 'Just Kids', hence its price of 19 (!) pounds.