The invitation began while I was in my first beer line of the evening: a throbbing baseline reminiscent of something vaguely Talking Heads-esque was beckoning me beyond the brew stand at Randall's Island last Saturday, a venue that I had ostensibly ventured to for the first time in order to see Arcade Fire.What ensued over the next couple of hours before Arcade Fire took the stage was a tour through myriad genres of music, all wrapped up into one highly combustible package of aural delight. Admittedly, I fell pretty quickly for LCD Soundsystem, despite some small resistance somewhere in the back of my head asking if I was truly hippie-ing out to dance-trance electronica. But that guitar sound! That frontman! The energy! The comely keyboard player and her shiny pumps! And that disco ball couldn't have hurt, either...
I had hoped to find a clip of "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" online to share with you, because James Murphy's hilarious and touching performance truly felt like a loving, impromptu confessional to the city. Murphy is utterly captivating onstage, not just
because of his quick wit and large stage presence, but because he has the ability to slip between vocal registers with the unforseen stealth of somebody like Jim James, who could be melting your face with primal screams and then suddenly hit an ethereal note that transports you. James Murphy is my new man to watch (and for those of you in NYC, he's DJing a set at The Hiro Ballroom next Tuesday, Oct 16th. It's free if you RSVP...). For more evidence of Murphy's sense of humor, and because bloggers deserve to be made fun of, click here.
Towards the end of set we returned to that deliciously quirky baseline that had enticed me at the outset, and I concluded that I would need to see more of this band as soon as possible. As I was trying to figure out how I would describe this newfound portal of pleasure, my friend and music expert SuperDee aptly concluded that it was Dance N' Roll. No wonder they pay her the big bucks ;) The set that followed from Arcade Fire was an enjoyable (if predictable) sing-along, but it could not nearly deliver the punch of its predecesor, leaving me hankering for some more Dance N' Roll as I headed out to find the loser cruiser to deliver me to back to Manhattan.
