LCD Soundsystem / Arcade Fire

Last night was the LCD Soundsystem/Arcade Fire show at the Waterfront in Louisville. The venue was amazing with the stage set up so as not to be blocking the water & the sky was a peculiar orangish color outlining the second street bridge. A perfect setting for a perfect double feature of music that didn’t end with this show…

If you enjoyed LCD Soundsystem….JUAN MACLEAN is TONIGHT at the DAME for $10

For My REVIEW & PICTURES
James played everything including Tribulations, North American Scum, Yeah, Someone Great, All My Friends, Daft Punk is Playing at My House and closed with New York I Love You. The show was SICK. The problem & its the same problem I have with most Louisville shows was the crowd…NOBODY was dancing. Fortunately I met a kid from Chicago and another kid from Memphis & they were dancing, but its so depressing to go to a disco punk show like that and nobody was dancing. It did allow me to push up to the front with great ease though. What I later learned is that the fans were all truly Arcade Fire fans through and through.

The most amazing thing happened though…James breaks out a mirror ball and I just went wild…Sober as could be, I couldn’t control myself because the performance was really intense. It shocked me that he stated he’d actually played in Louisville years earlier (and he said that he’d considered moving here, but I call BS on that one), but it was nice that he talks about our city as being forward thinking! While New York I Love You is one of my favorite tracks, it wasn’t nearly hyped up enough to finish on, and he didn’t play Losing My Edge which IS my favorite song.

This was such a good show, even the music in the interim was amazing with Modern Lovers’ “I’m Straight” and the Pixies “Where is My Mind?” Not to mention the guy next to me had a Banksy Tatoo of the Girl with a Bomb.

I initially bought my tickets under the belief that LCD Soundsystem was headlining with Arcade Fire opening. Honestly, I’ve never been THAT into Arcade Fire, but my new friends from Chicago encouraged me that the show would be surprisingly good. I’d been listening to all the albums a lot over the last few weeks and liked them, but didn’t love them. But when show time came….let’s just say these guys put on a show. AND THEY ARE A BAND. There were about 7 or so people on stage just enjoying themselves. They played the usual suspects black Wave, No Cars Go, Haiti, Intervention, Wake Up & everything else you’d want to hear. I got lucky and was second row, center stage so when he came down into the crowd, he jumped on top of me & the people around us. Security had to do their best to keep the rails from collapsing as everyone pushed forward.

Another funny moment during the show was as Win Butler started a song (I cannot recall which at the moment), a screw came loose on his guitar pickup so he playfully threw his guitar across the stage. He actually had to screw it back in DIY style…it was great.

To my friends in Brooklyn who read this from time to time….that show this Saturday is the last show of the tour I think….you really need to go if you still can. $36 was cheap for this experience. My only regret is not being more confident with my camera & taking more pictures but I didn’t want to deal with the security guys, but they turned out to be pretty cool.