Room on Fire: The Strokes Rock D.A.R.

I was driving into work this morning, letting the Excedrin and Bufferin seep into my bloodstream, and I threw the first track off of FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EARTH on. I forgot that my iPod was on Shuffle, but it came as a nice surprise when "Take It or Leave It" and "Reptilia" followed "You Only Live Once." All three songs played out great in a live setting last night. "Reptilia" was the strongest of all of those because Julian Casablancas was actually in the crowd for the whole thing, passing among strangers, exposed to the rest of the crowd via camera flashes, riding atop shoulders, and nailing the majority of the vocal despite his crowded and unpredictable disposition among the masses. "Reptilia" is an important song for many because it seems to be the song with the most promise on ROOM ON FIRE, their second release. People may not have liked the entire second album, many believing that it was the classic sophomore slump (to which I disagree), but for people like Top, it was the standout, and the reason to at least look into FIRST IMPRESSIONS and check out the live show. It proved to be a killer performance live, bordering on chaos, blurring the line between stage and audience, performer and crowd member. But let's start at the beginning...

Our expectations for last night were shattered. The good fortune began when we were pointed to our seats and they were box seats relatively close to the stage. We showed up after the first act was finished so we have nothing to report on Shawn Nay Nay other than his voice sounded pretty pimp on the duet he came out and nailed with Julian and the fellas ("Under Control") halfway through their set. The Strokes came out between 9:15 and 9:30 and opened with "Heart In A Cage." The energy and pace of that song carried over into nearly everything that followed. Highlights included "Ize of the World," "Someday," "Red Light" into "Soma" which moved quickly into the song that follows it on IS THIS IT?, "Barely Legal," "Alone Together," "Electricityscape," "Juicebox," "On The Other Side," "The Modern Age," "When It Started," "12:51," "The End Has No End," "What Ever Happened?" "Vision of Division" and "Last Night" which came about 3/4 of the way through the main set. "Ask Me Anything" was the only thing that tempered the frantic pace, coming around the middle of the set and featuring (as it does on the album) Nick Valensi on the keys and Julian's vocal.

Julian made his way into the crowd at the tail end of the song before "Reptilia" during some winding guitars. Initially, he was in the first aisle parallel to the stage front, most of the crowd (seemingly) expected him to get back up before the next song kicked off and found the moment and unpredictability fleeting, but "Reptilia" crept in with its building intro and we soon realized Julian was going to be in the crowd for a while, and the crowd embraced his presence. Cell phones and digital cameras reared their greedy heads and the crowd converged on the rocker everywhere he went. At times he appeared to be on top of seats, shoulders, and then other times he would disappear only to reappear somewhere else. He was sporadically illuminated by the flashes, as I mentioned earlier, and I believe the song ended with him still among the riot he had created.

He thanked the crowd several times for the noise and feedback it was providing and I couldn't help but think how different this crowd was from Franz Ferdinand's. As soon as they came out the place was on its feet, and about halfway through I looked around and there was a dance party going down in every aisle and every box. The crowd was awesome. After they finished the initial set, the crowd erupted and nearly matched the sound that the speakers had brought for the last hour and a half. I forget what they brought first in the three song encore but it closed with their first album bookends, "Take It Or Leave It" into "Is This It?" But, my head is still spinning from the performance of "Reptilia." Top's email to me says it all: "I will never listen to 'Reptilia' the same way again." I will never listen to the majority of their catalog (which they covered in a solid hour and forty-five minutes) in the same way.