LCD Soundsystem and YACHT
Mezzanine, San Francisco, CA
April 30, 2007

Veronica and i arrived at Mezzanine at the rather late hour of 10:45pm to find that our usual opener-avoidance policy had backfired and we were smack in the middle of a bizarre electro/performance bit from some indie kid from Portland, dubbed YACHT (caps necessary). His set consisted mainly of a lot of freaky dancing performed to a relatively simple synth and beat recording. I knew nothing about him before seeing him ... that i know he's from Portland is due to the fact that he must've told the crowd about fifteen times. He also gave a lot of lip service to grunge, as evident by his Nirvana t-shirt. V liked him as he gave an impromptu question-and-answer session during which he responded to snarky queries by saying "that question was meant to make me feel bad, so i'm not going to answer it, because i'm here to make everyone feel good". He was certainly likeable, if certifiable.

After Mr. Portland's exit and a modest setup time, the LCD backup players (technically, the band is James Murphy and only James Murphy) emerged and began playing. The crew included a guitarist (who i later learned is in celebrated electro act Hot Chip, explaining why certain members of the crowd were asking for "Over and Over"), a bass player, a synth ... umm ... operator, a "utility man", and a drummer. I was immediately struck at how this group looked like they were all 43, save for the petite Chinese girl playing keyboards. Murphy emerged shortly thereafter to lead a performance of "Us V Them" from their sophomore album Sound of Silver. The song is a good representation of the noisy !!!-esque jams that LCD's sound has evolved into. The band then played a few of their singles, including current release "North American Scum" and one of the highlights of their first album, "Daft Punk is Playing at My House". I noticed that both of these songs derive considerable inspiration from the 70's sonic experiments of Can, especially the bass harmonics. It's odd considering Murphy's sarcastic allusions to the Krautrock outfit in his indictment of hipsters, "Losing My Edge". V was hotly anticipating that song, and about halfway through the set we thought we were hearing the opening drum beat. Instead, it wound up being the lead track from Sound of Silver, "Get Innocuous". I felt slighted enough to refer to Murphy as a beat recycler. Up to this point i was enjoying myself but not particularly blown away, certainly not mesmerized enough to ignore the collection of idiots that were jostling us around in our position a few feet from the stage. However, the complex layers of noise comprising "All My Friends" truly got me in the groove of the show. Whereas V turned to me and quoted Alan Partridge by saying "that was just noise!", i was entranced by the waves of synth piled on top of a simple piano riff. The band then trotted out crowd favorite "Tribulations" from their first record. All the while i was biding my time for the transcendent "Someone Great", and began to wonder whether this mellow track would make it on Murphy's setlist populated almost exclusively by bangers. However, this song opened the encore, after a brief hiatus while three members of the band sorted out issues with a sampler. It's odd that the song i was most excited about wound up being my least favorite of the set ... Murphy can wail and scream with the best of them, but actual singing is clearly not his forte. Perhaps due to the aforementioned technical issues, the samples also didn't resonate as well as the album version. However, my opinion of the set was then restored by an unexpected cover of the Joy Division classic "No Love Lost". Although in retrospect if Murphy wanted to pay homage to the pioneering Mancs, this song was the one to choose as it best fit LCD's inclination towards noisy jams. Murphy omitted Ian Curtis's spoken word quotation of the House of Dolls ("No life at all in the house of dolls. No love lost"), but his rendition was a pleasant surprise. The band concluded with the slower "New York I Love You", a distinct contrast to the rest of the set but a nice somber end to the evening.

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