CREEM ONLINE: The Strokes

The Strokes
Warfield, San Francisco
April 8, 2004

Much sneering has been directed toward the Strokes and their three-chord opera supposedly fronting as contrived cool. All of you self-righteous industry types and self-anointed music aficionados, admit it, at one point or another you have looked down your nose at them, scoffing as their stylized hairdos and mediocre musical talents were lauded as the next big thing.

And you’re partially right; they are poseurs, in a sense. Their act is simply too tight, too flawless, too perfect. During a performance at the Warfield in San Francisco, cigarettes were not dropped, they were flicked in disdainful arcs across the stage. Ditto for water bottles. For well over half of the performance, a heavily backlit light show rendered the band as little more than silhouettes—perhaps for dramatic effect, perhaps to provide them a respite from having to appear so studiously bored, as if a visible smile would irreparably damage the overall effect.

Even Julian Casablancas’ elegantly wasted routine was just that, a routine, confirmed by a mid-show foray into the audience that had been cited in a review a week prior. At the time, the author cited Casablancas’ antics as “reckless and impromptu.”

“Julian wanders into the crowd, mic in hand, and at one point yells at an overeager fan, ‘I love you, but get the fuck off me,’” the reviewer wrote. That dialogue was unfortunately replicated verbatim during the Warfield set. Leaping headlong into the crowd: that’s rock ’n’ roll. Rehearsed banter: not so much. Did Pop Mart teach us nothing?

This momentary lack of inspiration aside, the show was an immensely entertaining guilty pleasure. Style and substance, a la Duran Duran, if you will. The Strokes execute their songs with machine-like efficiency, punctuated with Casablancas‚ banter and Albert Hammond’s gleeful guitar solos. Casablancas’ “look at me, I’m inebriated” shtick may ooze indifference, but when it comes to singing, he clearly has something to prove. It is this combination of insouciant behavior and earnest performance that is the Strokes trademark, and it was infectious. For the duration of their hour-and-a-half-long set, many disparate tastes were indulged—the mosh pit moshed, the hepcats hung — but collectively, there was not an un-cool cat in the joint. Except perhaps for the unfortunate fellow caught napping by a clearly offended Casablancas, who proceeded to viciously berate him. Aww, Julian, you’re so cute when you think you’re being ignored.