The Strokes - London Alexandra Palace - 6/12/03
4/5
By: Toby L
'Thanks for spending this Saturday night with us five fags...' Julian Casablancas - 6th December 2003.
Be it the storming, matured return with second album 'Room On Fire' this past Autumn, or merely a long-awaited return to the UK after over - gulp - a year away, the anticipation for New York's most fervent, timely export of the past two decades is excruciating. We're in the right grounds for it all, though - London's Alexandra Palace; a venue synonymous with iconic performances from Blur and New Order during the 90s, and a setting which romantically overlooks the British capital, dusk over city and lights extending into the curving horizon.
And 7,500 revellers have made the trek for the pleasure this evening, while the same amount just a night previous similarly provided attendance - thus forging the band's largest headline performances to date. And it only took twenty minutes to shift all 15,000 spots... Seemingly, any worried notion of The Strokes failing to potentially maintain stamina after their classic debut of 2001 - 'Is This It' - is quite unjust.
Fittingly, the ambience is that of drunk euphoria tonight. Completely standing, with an arching stage and f**ked-up UFO-lighting, the room of the Ally Pally comes on like an indoor-festival, whilst the inclusion of one sole support (a captivating 45 minutes from British Sea Power) and near-insulting, in-between stage-times (we wait the same amount of time as BSP's set until the headliners even ponder arriving in view) ensures that desperation for a show is rapt.
And, then, the lights drop and the roars begin, echoing around the hall to deafening intensity. A drum-roll flares, and the band launch into arguable career-highlight, the waltzing croon of 'Under Control', all fluttering guitars and gravely lounge-singing from militaria-clad frontman Julian Casablancas. It's a bizarre choice of entrance, yet merely serves to accentuate the hard thrash of following, new single 'Reptilia', and its smattering of strobes and razor-sharp riffs.
Yet, clearly, it's too much for the ghosts of Alexandra Palace. Mid-way, the house-lights return and the power is cut from the PA (news circulates post-show, unsurprisingly, of a crowd-surge which forced the performance to stop). Agonisingly, Casablancas eyes his thousands and demands for the 'f**king lights' to be turned off, prior to which they launch once again into an even angrier, snarling refrain of the previously halted track, and - as the darkness soon falls upon the arena once more - the clatter of relieved, feisty cheers bellows across all four walls. Ironically, it provides a monumental talking-point.
Then on in, the mood remains as elated as the performance proves technically hitch-free for a remaining hour - and a whole host of highlights garner romantic, fond, occasionally overwhelming responses: the exhibition of signature-hit 'Last Nite' just four tunes in; thrilling morph of debut-45 'The Modern Age' into the grappling, is it a synth?-lines of '12:51'; a back-to-back placing of the raging 'NYC Cops' with the warming chime of 'Someday'; a 'Lionel Ritchie style cover' (JC's own words) with up-and-coming, rockfeedback-fave Regina Spektor in the compelling opera-punk ode 'Post Modern Girls'; and a five-song climax which takes in each of the band's hardest, noisiest messes of flamboyant vintage-pop, not least a sing-a-long 'Hard To Explain', anthemic 'The End Has No End' and killer-closer 'Take It Or Leave It', not before they whack us, however, with a punk-ass cover of The Clash's 'Clampdown'.
We don't expect an encore, and as the room illuminates once more, what resonates most clearly other than the stench of sweat and beer is an immediate anti-climax... That, for just 65 minutes, our minds and collective hearts were lifted by a NY quintet capable of both pushing the boundaries whilst looking like pouting glamour-wizards in the process. It's long been mooted that the devil has the best tunes. Bollocks. The Strokes do.
Artists in this article: The Strokes
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