The Strokes - Hull City Hall - 11.2.06
3/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Incredible to consider it's been almost half a decade since first the Strokes hit these shores in all their hype-saturated, hysteria-inducing iconic glory. The sheer sense of occasion of those gigs, at times appearing to represent something close to genuine historical consequence, tended to overshadow the actual music.
The nonchalant, detached languor permeates the new material: but crucially, lacks the sheer exhilaration that still greets material from 2001 debut 'Is This It'. Although a crunching 'Juicebox' inspires the greatest amount of crowd vigour all evening, it's still 'The Modern Age', 'Soma' and, during the encore, a riotous 'New York City Cops' that are greeted with the greatest affection. This is The Strokes' dilemma - still able to ride on the crest of the wave from back in the day; maybe it's just that Hull represents a pit stop of negligible importance on a long UK tour-but tonight they seem fully unconcerned with actually engaging an audience.
This overlooks the inherent truth that bands need to try hard to make gigs in larger venues interesting. The Strokes' lacklustre stage presence, Julian Casablancas' unfathomable mumbling, and the undeniable truth that, after three albums, much of their repertoire sounds pretty darn similar - leads the mind to wander...namely to the efforts other bands make. Franz Ferdinand gigs resemble some post-modern political rally, served up with oodles of panache. Muse used to unleash giant inflatable beach balls into the audience to offset the eyeball-mangling laser show during the finale of their cod-operatic histrionics - and that's when they were headlining the Second Stage at festivals. Gosh, even The Darkness have giant inflatable comedy breasts as a primary stage prop. Whilst - mercifully - The Strokes aren't likely to be emulating the latter any time soon, apparently bottomless reserves of cool aren't enough to carry a show.
Artists in this article: The Strokes
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