Live Review
by SashaS
1-3-2002
   
   
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The Strokes rock Paradiso
Live: The Strokes
Paradiso, Amsterdam
Thursday, February 28, 2002
The Strokes take on Europe and we witness them going high in the Lowlands


The Strokes’ members might feel like they’ve been touring for a number of years but it is the Dutch debut at Paradiso. And the whole place, packed with eager locals pumped up with expectations, needed to be convinced; about 20 minutes is required for adulation to hit the rafters of the Amsterdam’s favourite gigging place. The initiation into The Strokes’ world comes with a little puzzle of the intro music: Cyndi Lauper’s bygone-hit ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, that is far from rocky punkdom of the New Yorkers.

On the other side of the English Channel, the Americans were showered with gongs, one Brit Award as the Best International Newcomers, the title that would not only be confirmed few days later by the matching NME Award (Best New Act) but win two more trophies, Band Of The Year and the Best Album for ‘Is This It’. It is easy to see why from the show’s outset, this is the essence of Rock’n’Roll, at times primal, stripped to the DKNY briefs, really digging the dawn of teenagers’ free spirit.

Dressed (down) in their usual second-hand street clothes, this band solely focuses on songs, delivering music in all its might and without much pausing for sorting out impressions. Julian Casablancas is reluctant to address the audience and lets the tunes speak volumes; guitarists Albert Hammonds Jr and Nick Valensi are exchanging chords like it were the beginning of the last revolt, Nikolai Fraiture’s bass is solidly laying rhythmic foundations in unison with the powerhouse drumming of Fab Moretti.

The stage is lit minimally, mostly from the background and generally used to illuminate the entire scene rather than spotting individual egos. It is a show that, when it finally ignites the adrenaline, it really can’t be stopped as it rolls over you with the subtlety of a rhino’s charging. It all ends within 50 minutes with all the songs the band’s ever released included, plus two new ones. The first is ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’, a ska-tinted epic that really moves everyone, on par with ‘The Modern Age’, ‘Hard To Explain’ (the best song The Fall never recorded), ‘Last Nite’, ‘New York City Cops’ (the only controversial song in their repertoire that was kept off the US version of the ‘Is This It’)… The second newie is not announced due to still lacking a title…

‘Soma’, ‘When It Started’, ‘Is This It’, ‘Barely Legal’, ‘Trying My Luck’ and ‘Take It Or Leave It’ ensure the audience keeps foaming through all orifices. The Strokes are confident, receptive, thrilling and sexy… It is so easy to believe that The Strokes will “Tour and record for the rest of their lives”, as their online biography states, on this kinda evidence, Your Honour.

Still, the end arrives far too prematurely and, naturally, there are no encores. When you perform with this amount of punk-attitude, it’d be betraying the ideology the band stands for by returning for such a warn-out chestnut. The feeling one is left with is a reconfirmation that Rock’n’Roll is the soul music of white folk! This edition simply takes you places that were left untouched by rush since… grunge went global.


SashaS
1-3-2002
The Strokes’ album ’Is This It’ is out now on RCA/BMG