Smooth Strokes
By Bruce Martinez
One gets the impression that the five members of The Strokes don't particularly care if you like them, their music or their live shows. As a band they aren't interested in typical rock star stage antics or playful banter with the crowd. What you get instead of cheesy jumps into the air timed with power chords is the most incendiary performance any band could give.
This was on full display at their show on Tuesday the 21st at the Bill Graham Civic, where the New York five faced a room that was much too big and a restless crowd, yet they played a perfect concert. The band has made an art out of passionate nothingness. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture and guitarists Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi play frantically, quickly bouncing melodies off each other while also barely moving. They are joined by drummer Fabrizio Moretti who as much as any drummer since John Bonham fuels furious precision from his band mates. All this falls into place for lead singer Julian Casablancas who at times comes across as sad, desperate, confused and also conflicted. His voice personifies wonderful ambiguity and allows him to be emotionally vulnerable and also remarkably distant.
The show opened with the closest thing to a ballad The Strokes have ever written, their new song Under Control. After teasing the crowd with what may lie ahead, the band tore threw a 70 minute set that traded new tracks with old hits and never allowed anyone to even breathe or even begin to consider the magic on the stage.
One would have expected the new material to calm the crowd, but a good deal of those in attendance had listened to copies of "Room on Fire" over the web. Those who had not were quickly caught up into the moaning lyrics and catchy instrumentation that has marked all the music The Strokes have put out.
The show closed with the band returning after a 10 minute break for a one song encore preceded by Casablancas slurring to the crowd, "This is the last encore we're going to do on this tour, and you get to see it. It's not us. We don't like encores. That's the way it is." Even after rejecting another rock star notion- you play encores- the band raced through "Is This It" and walked off the stage as guitar feedback echoed through the building.
Perhaps the greatest testament to the powerful performance given was in the faces of the people crowding the sidewalk outside of the hall after the show. Their faces were covered in smiles of disbelief and survival, friends hugged each other and tried to articulate their thoughts. Everyone smoked cheap cigarettes and felt for just a moment that they belonged to something special, something important. A man was heard saying, "They didn't miss a note all night, they played perfectly and almost didn't even care to be there. They are the greatest band playing today. They are the future and the past, they are rock n roll."