Review: LCD Soundsystem dance, thrash in Dallas

At 40, James Murphy might be getting just a little too old to mock people who don’t care as much about music as he does. Especially considering how much the dude loves music. Before owning and producing his own Death From Abroad label and singing lead in LCD Soundsystem, Murphy clerked, shag-haired and unshaven in a record store, listening to “everything before everybody”.

Murphy, right with LCD synth player Gavin Russom

Regardless, there were plenty such people at the Palladium Ballroom in Dallas, Texas Wednesday night who were more concerned with whom they were with than the band they’d shelled out $40 each to see. Funny lyric changes to “Pow Pow” and an amazing one-man, two-part conversation during “Losing My Edge” went largely unnoticed by the crowd, which was energetic enough, dancing and fist-pumping most of the night.

“Us v. Them” kicked the show off expertly with it’s “the time has come to PLAY” lyrics and call and response audience part, forcing patrons to start moving with it’s dance-funk, cowbell solo and intricate working parts. The hotly-debated new release “Drunk Girls” immediately followed, to a criminally underwhelmed reaction. Nancy Whang deserved an ovation for supplying the roughly 400 backing “DRUNK GIRLS” lines dutifully, if a bit annoyed.

Murphy playfully altered the talky lyrics to “Pow Pow” to suit the domestic audience. “We have a black president and you do not, except you do, because we’re all from the same place,” he said in a sort of casual disco-command. A wobbly “Daft Punk is Playing At My House” probably got the loudest and most intense crowd reaction of the night, as Murphy again got playful, hooking the audience in with his “oooohwOOOO-HOOOOyeeeeeah” chorus calls.

And then he turned sarcastic. After finishing “Daft Punk”, Murphy turned the sarcasm knob to 11, laughing about the old microphone that wasn’t working. “It’s old and weird, like meeeEEEEEE,” he sang, practically giddy before reaching into his most self-aware. “You’re breaking the fourth wall!”

Murphy managed to turn down the snark for one of the decade’s most endearing and beautiful songs (by anybody), “All My Friends”. At his most poignant, crowd members were nearly in tears at the line “I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of life”. The rushing finish was purely cathartic after building up on the nostalgia of young adult life shared with others at shows, parties, bars and intimate conversation.