But I Was There!

The Rapture/LCD Soundsystem show last night was fantastic. Here’s a quick summary:

The Rapture started off a little dull, playing five consecutive pre-Echoes songs, though “Out Of The Races And On To The Tracks” was played as the third song in the set, and I do like that one a lot. I’m not too crazy about the pre-Echoes Rapture material – it’s not bad, but it’s just nowhere near as exciting as their new material. “Olio” was played sixth in the set, and from there on it was almost all Echoes songs – “The Coming Of Spring,” “Heaven,” “Sister Savior,” “I Need Your Love,” and “House of Jealous Lovers.” After the brief encore break, they played another old song which I didn’t know the title of, and then closed with “Echoes.” They only played for about 50 minutes. “I Need Your Love” was played with a slightly different arrangement than the album version – the very house-y keyboard part was played with a different keyboard sound and was somewhat deemphasized, and the beat was a little slower too. It went over very well with the crowd, most of whom didn’t seem to know the Echoes songs other than “House Of Jealous Lovers” and the original guitar version of “Olio.” (“Olio” was played with the all-keyboard Echoes arrangement, by the way.)

The Rapture were very intense, but they weren’t nearly as impressive or as tight as LCD Soundsystem. Just going on the two singles that they’ve released so far, it seemed like they were just a very good novelty act/vanity project, but this is a real band, probably the best band out of all of the current Brooklyn/NYC groups. Seriously, once you all hear the new songs and/or see them live, you will be convinced, I promise. They played this one new song called “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House,” and I swear to God, I really wish that I could let you all hear the groove of this thing. In addition to that and two other new songs, they did “Beat Connection,” “Give It Up,” and “Losing My Edge.”

I really liked how just in the stage set-up, LCD Soundsystem makes their emphasis very obvious – the drummer is in the front on the right hand side of the stage, where most bands would put a guitarist, and on the left hand side they’ve got a huge bank of keyboards and samplers, plus more percussion. The bass player stayed in the back, and on the one song with guitar in it, the guitarist stayed in the back. The whole LCD Soundsystem arrangement makes so much sense to me, it’s hard to understand why it’s not more common. Why aren’t there more guitar-free bands playing rhythm-heavy rock with lots of keyboard noise?

I spoke to LCD Soundsystem’s leader/singer James Murphy (who looks like a cross between Pete & Pete’s Endless Mike and Six Feet Under’s Nate Fisher) when they were packing up, and he told me that they were planning on releasing two more singles in 2003, and that their album would be out in 2004. I’m very excited to hear more.