The Strokes Highly-buzzed New York band The Strokes played a
rocking show at the Palace in Hollywood on Thursday and Friday.
By Antero Garcia
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Let the comparisons between The Strokes and the Velvet
Underground stop here: in the 1960s when The Velvet Underground
performed live shows, the crowd was small and bemused at best.
On Thursday night, when The Strokes took to the stage at the
over-crowded Palace, the band was playing to a crowd of excited
fans.
Another thing that was established at the night’s rather
short show was the fact that The Strokes is a cool band. Maybe even
ultra-hip.
The crowd had a different, almost conceited, feeling to it. With
hair of every imaginable color, and vintage clothing probably
bought at extravagant prices in places like Beverly Hills and
Melrose, the crowd was so cool.
Everyone waiting to get the ol’ “getting to know
you” security check secretly sneered at passing pedestrians
who were oblivious to the hipness that was going to be obnoxiously
pounded out of the speakers in the venue. Man, that crowd sure knew
what was going on.
How was the group cool? First of all, those haircuts were
happenin’. A bit retro yes, but still meticulously cool. Oh,
and those tight denim and leather jackets members of the band were
sporting were also hip. Yeah, The Ramones wore stuff like that and
they were super cool too.
Perhaps the coolest part of the whole band is its front man
Julian Casablancas. The audience has got to hand it to this guy.
He’s got the charisma and charm of James Dean and the
destructive nature of a bleeding, puking Iggy Pop.
Throughout the group’s less than an hour set, Casablancas
was often slouching in place calmly yelping the words to songs,
only to maniacally throw the microphone stand and spit wherever he
pleased. And was that a big stack of speakers on the side of the
stage that Casablancas crazily bowled over? Hell yes it was, and it
sure was the hip thing to do.
Musically, the band sounded as good as its underground buzzed
album. It had the same vocals that sound like they were recorded in
a Fisher-Price tape deck and the short but sweet guitar solos that
are almost perfect for radio airplay were there too. But as most of
the crowd knew, the songs are clearly too cool to get any radio
play besides the band’s hit “Last Nite.”
Sticking strictly to the tracks on the band’s album
“Is This It,” the band played the songs almost in the
order they appear on the album, kicking off the show with the title
track and closing with “Take It Or Leave It.” The only
deviation from these songs in the set was the inclusion of the song
“New York City Cops,” which was withheld from the
band’s U.S. release, due to the events on Sept. 11.
But since The Strokes played the song, the band was almost
rebelling, being cool as usual.
Opening for The Strokes was The Moldy Peaches. The group
consisted of a backup band, with the two band mates Adam Green and
Kimya Dawson taking turns screaming nonsense and obscenities into a
microphone. Though a bit abrasive, attendees couldn’t be
hipsters without saying that the racket was talented symphonic
bliss.
Whether the evening was filled with conceited musical
connoisseurs ““ both on stage and in the crowd, it sure was
cool.