Article by Marzia Picciano | Photo by Luca Moschini
“I never realized these artists thought so much about dying/But truth be told we all have the same end“I didn't say it, he said it James Murphy in the first verses of tonite (intentionally in lowercase, all), 2017 piece by the band he fronts, LCD Sound Systemwhich reached our ears after the same, in my humble opinion one of the most emblematic bands of the revolution of the 2000s, the internal one, in which we all realized that we are mortal, had decided to split up, seven years earlier. It is a banal truth, and yet it is so enlightening to hear it again, this time live, yesterday August 26th at the opening of the big concerts of the new version of the TODAYS Festivalwhich saw the New York-made band perform on stage at Confluence Park.
I admit it: I wasn't enthusiastic about the change in management of the iconic Turin festival at the end of the summer and it's really too early to draw conclusions, but when they appeared on the line up I couldn't help but get back in the car even though I was coming back from a six-hour highway drive after the holidays and venture into Barriera di Milano for them. I didn't regret it, on the contrary: they managed to leave me speechless, you say it without worrying about going overboard in the ecstasy of the Swifties-level fans, even on the day of the announcement of the reunion of the century (you know what I mean). Seeing Murphy and friends (aka: Pat Mahoney, Nancy Wang, Al Doyle, Tyler Pope, Korey Richeyall exceptional and almost complementary to their frontman) is something that has to be done in life, even if you are not a fan, even if you are not a lover of the genre (after all, how many people do you know who do dance-punk, leaving aside the electronic twists of the IDLES?), simply because there are few concerts that are so beautiful and well done, that make you feel emotional and go beyond the emotionality of streaming. They attack deep in the marrow, and give a shock that reminds us that we are alive. Unfortunately, they would add.
The piece that brought LCD Soundsystem into the underground ideal between the facetious and the terribly serious (very present in yesterday's setlist) was nothing more than an angry (but I would say more desperate) monologue about being overtaken, stuff for nostalgics who are a bit boomer and as nice as the hipster committees against the gentrification of the suburbs besieged by the new hipsters. There is a self-pitying irony in LCD, of those who are too good or have been. It makes you wonder if you can't find a counterpoint in those who actually opened or accompanied the concert of our heroes, the equally very New Yorkers Nation Of Language which are very rhetorically asked by those who fancy a bit of LCD Soundsystem and which the undersigned has already had the chance to admire atYpsigrock at the beginning of the month (twice in thirty days, it's a booster vaccination). I must say that nothing delights me more than Ian Richard Devaney who improvises a Broadway show across the entire stage while singing Weak In Your Lightis clearly the alter ego of the fourteen year old me who danced with the headphones of the mp3 player in the dark at night in the living room of the house, obviously to take up more space and not bump into tables that would have forced my parents to get up and discover that they had a daughter with night-owl dancing desires. Now listening to them before LCD Soundsystem the resemblance is even more evident (New York-ness?) of the sound all tied to vibrant synthetic memories, more Spandau Ballet here though, apart from some purely New Orderian esprit.
It's then time for Murphy and the band, preceded by a quick stage change that already anticipates to us, the anxious spectators, the complexity of the show. Two drums, two pianos/keyboards, samplers, synthesizers, a spaceship. The only certainty, already present in Nation of Language: the enormous strobe ball just above, a trademark par excellence, that screams I Can Change I Can Change I Can Change while shedding light on our patheticness. Yes, because what LCD teach us with each of their songs is exactly this: how beautiful and pathetic are we in our ambitions? And they do it with obsessive sounds, with lyrics that do not bend to the logic of commercial songs, songs that are long well beyond the diktat radio-friendly (the tracklist is not excessively intense, but if you consider that each track is at least seven minutes long, well, it's easy to say), circular melodies that make us ask ourselves every time: but how the hell did they manage to sell them to us and make us love them, how is it possible that I find them brilliant and now, played in front of me, I risk falling even deeper into them?
After all, just look at Murphy arriving to the tune of (a very sarcastic) Real Good Time Together Of Lou Ree with the aplomb of a charismatic and extremely serious maestro and at the same time, not even for a moment, who moves among his creatures (band and equipment, all together) observing, correcting, helping, complimenting, leaving the stage, returning to it, taking his handheld microphone that looks like a transceiver for an officer in the trenches to be furious with, while jumping on the speakers, on the hunchback, despairing (always with great composure), gargling before attacking I Can Change.
But we love them, we love them just the way they are. You Wanted A Hit really unleashes the audience by continuing in a continuation of that satanic dance devoid of pathos, because it is too full of sagacity that is Tribulationsand now we are really dancing. They do not sin in the live, on the contrary: they are evidently in their pure element even if they are not stage animals in the common sense of the term and no, you will not see them climbing like Vedder or Albano on the scaffolding, nor running from one side of the stage to the other, at most you will catch Murphy on a very thoughtful walk to go and visit a friend, Pat Mahoneywho at that moment is bending over the drums, take the sticks, and hit the cymbals and snare drum themselves, or to point Nancy Wang as he moves from synthesizer to piano and intones New York I Love You, But Youre Bringing Me Down when the technicians are still leaving the stage.
tonite raises the bar on sarcasm, Home dissipates it in the hallucinatory lights of the strobe ball and in the choruses that anticipate Dance Yrslf Clean, one of those pieces that the band builds so well in a crescendo that repeats itself always and never, in a development time that is infinite, a devastating wait for the explosion as only certain particularly desired orgasms are. A very red sun of dawn or sunset stands out while we think of Someone Great that left us, in the moment of lucidity that we encounter when we experience the emptiness of certain absences, or the sense of growing up, in the real sense of getting older and discovering ourselves less cool perhaps, and moreover with the fear of having missed out on great opportunities or some great friend. All My Friends It's the perfect song par excellence: not a refrain, a melody in the key of A major repeated ad exhaustion with the same vehemence of an argument in Morse code, almost as if to tell us that the music itself is the message and wants to tell us something (the existential anxiety that attacks us when we least expect it), an increasingly loud volume with each infernal turn, in the end we end up inside the piece and remain there, ecstatic, absorbed, tormented, different.
There is an almost sense of laziness, of carelessness and yet nothing is left to chance (not even the Easter eggs of Yazoo, Daft Punk and Suicide that appear as cameos in the performance), the execution is perfect, the result impossible to think about if not studied very carefully: we are swallowed up by the show, yet LCD Soundsystem want to entertain us while they lay bare our ridiculous existences. Is there anything more interesting than worrying about ourselves? Maybe laughing about it. A bitter laugh. But extremely danceable, and no, it's not the usual commercial gimmick. Because in the end, yes, we always think about that (about death, not only those who sing about it do), but in the meantime we try to give ourselves a chance.
Click here for photos from LCD Soundsystem and Nation of Language's concert or browse the gallery below
Nation of Language – The lineup of the concert in Turin
Spare Me the Decision
On Division St
Sun Obsession
Surely I Can't Wait
The Grey Commute
September Again
Weak in Your Light
This Fractured Mind
The Wall & I
A New Goodbye
Too Much, Enough
Across That Fine Line
LCD Soundsystem – The lineup of the concert in Turin
Real Good Time Together (Lou Reed)
Us v Them
I Can Change (Cameo on Kraftwerk's “Computer Love”)
You Wanted a Hit
Tribulations
Movement
Tonite
Someone Great
Losing My Edge (cameos by Suicide “Ghost Rider”, Daft Punk “Robot Rock” and Yazoo “Don't Go”)
Home
Dance Yrself Clean
New York, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down
All My Friends
Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears)
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
