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ACL: LCD Soundsystem
White Stripes vs. Arcade Fire? Whatever.
You want this festival’s real musical Sophie’s choice? Try M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem. Two acts at the top of their respective games, ultra-modernist dance music with exactly the same audience playing at exactly the same time. Hey, these things happen, but one of them couldn’t have played against, say, Jesse Malin?
LCD Soundsystem singer/head cheese James Murphy even made a comment about it from the AT&T Blue Room stage. “This is sad for us, because we really like her. Sorry, Maya. Hope you have a good set.” (She did fine, James.)
In fact, Murphy, whose media persona can run to the surly side, seemed downright jolly and friendly. He thanked the crowd for hanging out during the heat (“you’re working a lot harder than we are”) and chatted about the stages sponsor (“when I was playing in a punk band in 1983, I thought someday I’ll make it and bring the rock with five bars of receptions. Everyone gets a free iPhone!”). He mentioned the party for his wife’s birthday at Red 7 on Friday and urged everyone to stop by the 300ish capacity club and generally seemed genial and funny.
Oh, yeah, the music. Murphy uses a full band to translate his wiseacre techno into something blistering on stage. With guitar, bass, samples and an insanely hard-working drummer, the songs turned thinker, more ovoid. Murphy played the ringleader braying here and singing there, shouting out his homeland on “North American Scum” and lamenting (or is that celebrating?) that slow slide into middle age on “All My Friends”. He channeled his inner Bowie on the wonderful “Get Innocuous” and the blippy grooves becoming something larger and tougher, but still majestic — this was dance rock that didn’t skip on either term.
(Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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