Photo courtesy of Kmeron (flickr)After finding several songs that ranked among my favourites on this new album, I decided it was high time that I went through the LCD Soundsystem back catalogue and pick up the full albums that I’d neglected to commit to until then. Sound of Silver, their second album, is packed full of songs that I’d loved individually – and is even better when listened to as a complete package. Their first self-titled album was laden with songs that appealed to my growing taste in electronic music. LCD Soundsystem’s three albums, and their EP including the super long electronic opera “45:33” (it’s even longer than the name would suggest), were and still are the definition of the music I like.
LCD Soundsystem then became my favourite band. And then not eight months after they had reached that significance to me came the announcement that they were to end the band with a concert in New York. It’s fair to say I was upset by the decision.
Even though I was only 16 at the time, I looked into buying tickets and going over the Atlantic to Madison Square Garden for the show. The tickets themselves sold out within 60 seconds, and of course I wasn’t fortunate enough to get any. Considering the grand cost of the entire journey, it was probably a good thing in the long run that I didn’t have any luck.
So, I resigned myself to watching the end of my favourite band on a live stream on April 2nd 2011. As it turned out, I went to a friends’ house for a party and consumed far too many drinks of consolation – but I like to think that I commemorated the occasion to an extent. The next night I listened to an audio stream of the entire 4-hour concert. It was an experience in itself just listening to it. I was taken aback by how fantastic this electronic band sounded live. They were even better than on record! Although there was sadness about the fact that I wasn’t there, and that my favourite band had ended – I was once again astonished by how good LCD Soundsystem were.
Almost eighteen months later came the official concert movie, “Shut Up and Play the Hits”, so named because of the input of Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler whilst his band were being ramblingly introduced by Murphy before their guest appearance at the MSG concert. It was being screened in Aberdeen, shortly before I moved there to begin university, and thankfully this time I was able to make the pilgrimage to “see” my band.
Seeing SUAPTH was an amazing experience. James Murphy himself mixed the audio for the whole movie, which was an interesting documentary based around Murphy in the days before and after the concert. Of course, it was interspersed liberally with video from the concert. It sounded good through my audio stream, but in a cinema with proper audio – it was immense.
SUAPTH was as good as I thought it’d be, but I still wanted to see the whole thing. A few months later I got my wish as the DVD release of SUAPTH brought with it the full 4-hour concert. That was even better. It didn’t help my feelings of regret about not being there, but it showed me that the funeral of my favourite band was indeed the best one ever. In typical LCD style, there was laughter and tears throughout from the band. They put their heart and soul into the performance and it showed. You can forgive James’ progressively drunken state, as he deals with ending what was his livelihood for ten years in front of thousands of people.
LCD are still my favourite band, even though they’re music is becoming less ‘modern’ than it ever was. Apart from the release of “Live Alone“, a Franz Ferdinand cover, in late 2011, there has been nothing more from the band at all. Nancy, Pat and Tyler have gone on with their other musical projects. James has done almost everything under the sun since leaving the band other than making his own music. He’s even launched his own brand of coffee.
Still, though, the fallout of the concert has not settled. The full audio album will be released on May 19, and will take pride of place in my iTunes library instantly. Hearing the songs live gives them another dimension of emotion that a studio produced record can’t achieve. The way that songs like “Tribulations” and “Movement” are introduced, in particular, are the result of an evolution of the songs coming from years of playing them after being recorded first. It’s an evolution that has brought another level to the songs.
James Murphy was worried back in 2002 that he had become outdated in his DJ profession and wrote “Losing My Edge” as an ode to what he thought was his demise. 12 years on from then, and 3 years after the balloons dropped on his music world-changing band, his music has certainly not lost its edge.