By now, the story is a well-known tale. After years of saturation by the Limp Bizkits and Creeds of the world, something strange happened to modern rock radio – it began playing rock again. The one-two punch of the Strokes’ “Last Nite” and the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl” singles sounded the death bells for bloated, arms-wide-open bands whining about their bad mothers and fathers. This inaugurating a new era of raw, unpretentious rock that had a shot at flourishing in the mainstream.
In this “revolution,” as it has been called in countless media analyses, the Strokes play the Beatles to the White Stripes’ Rolling Stones; Jack and Meg have the showmanship and the rock ‘n’ roll swagger, while Jules, Nick, Albert, Nikolai and Fab bring the smart songwriting and enrapturing, so-tight-you-could-bounce-a-quarter-off-them live performances. Kicking off a new leg of their tour supporting their newest album, Room on Fire, the Strokes performed at Nation Tuesday night.
The expected deafening screams greeted the Fab Five as they walked onstage with typical nonchalance, with guitarist Nick Valensi carrying a bottle of champagne. Up to this point, I was ready for an audience whose behavior would mimic that of typical hipsters, expecting the crowd to show its love and appreciation for the band by folding their arms, tapping one foot and smoking their cigarettes. This was not to be. Not long into “Under Control,” the second song in the set, the crowd began to tidally surge back and forth, propelling itself by pushing one way and having the reaction returned in the opposite direction. After initially resisting this behavior, I gave in around “Someday” and “12:51” and joined the party, jumping, pushing and dancing with everyone else.
Even stranger than the celebratory atmosphere of the audience was the behavior of lead singer Julian Casablancas. Defying his characteristic stoicism, the front man interacted with the crowd rather than simply singing the songs, a convention of Strokes shows. Along the way, he dedicated “Trying Your Luck” to “a girl that comes to all of our shows” and took requests from the crowd. Midway through the first verse of one song, a cigarette tossed from the audience flew toward Casablancas’ face and, displaying Matrix-like reaction time, dodged his head out of the way and caught it midair, tossing it onto drummer Fabrizio Moretti’s riser.
Casablancas even went so far as to leave the stage during “The Modern Age,” climbing halfway into the crowd directly in front to be greeted by hands eager to touch the singer. By the song’s end, he was fully immersed in the crowd. As he sang “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” his presence was nearly undetectable, signified only by a small circle that had formed on the floor around his shaggy head, which periodically bobbed into view. The other members of the band – guitarists Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Moretti – played to type, simply standing, playing their instruments and smoking. After introducing more false endings to the show than “Return of the King,”the band finally left the stage, not returning for an encore, as per usual.
I remembered how struck I had been by the wide variety of ages and backgrounds of the ticket holders. In front of me in line had been a typical Strokes fan, sporting a clever hat and an even more clever T-shirt, but behind me were several high school-aged girls whose father bought them McDonald’s food while they were standing in line. Fans walked by dressed as if they had simply taken off their Dave Matthews Band T-shirts and replaced them with Room on Fire ones.
This was not a crowd consisting of the expected geeks and indie kids; this was a populist crowd, a crowd whose composition mirrored the Strokes’ swift transition from a small New York City band to one of the “Big New Things.” The band is no longer the secret kept by a select few in the know; it is now an entity with name recognition reaching far beyond the hearts and minds of music lovers and extending deep into conventional American culture.
The Strokes’ show, combining the band’s newfound joyous energy, distinctive tightness and devoted, wide-ranging audience, was more carnival than spectacle, creating a concert with more participation than I could have ever imagined. The performance cemented both the band’s new A-list status and the fact that it is one of the best, most dynamic bands to emerge in recent years. In “What Ever Happened?”Casablancas’ opening line is “I wanna be forgotten.” It’s too late for that now; the Strokes are here to stay.
