Ed's Note - This is the one review on this list that I wrote directly after the concert, so I've decided to publish the original.
There's something incredibly comforting about watching James Murphy at work. For a man who is called a musical genius by so many critics, he's so humble on stage that it's almost unsettling. Whether in front of the mic or when he picks up a pair of drumsticks, he just seems at home on stage. That's where the debate about going out at the top of your game really comes out. Why deprive the world of such an alarming level of talent? If the rumors really are true and his latest LCD Soundsystem outing is in fact his last, then this show will really be one to remember.
Coming out with a bang and forcing everyone to dance, Murphy shows how he’s mastered the game he perfected. The gig was as tight as tight can be. To take a noise pit like the Koolhaus, which often ruins the most talented bands, and to excel in it is nothing short of a triumph.
Murphy almost floats about the stage without a shred of pretension. You really get the sense that he is a perfectionist through-and-through. At one point he unhitched his mic and wandered over to band-mate Nancy Whang’s sound board to tweak one of her levels. Whang almost immediately changed it back. But Murphy casually wandered over and changed it again. Looking a little closer, you could almost see him justifying the original change to her.
It's actions like that that show you he really loves the experience of live music. Not just as a performer, but as an extended member of the audience on the stage. In the middle of playing Losing my Edge, the band stopped mid-song to wait out a fight in the audience. While encouraging them to settle calm down, Murphy mused that he felt a bit like Mick Jagger at Altamont telling people to play it cool...while in reality having no power and reducing himself to look like a wimp.
It's that kind of authenticity that really makes the lyrics of LCD transcend what so many others have tried to do before them: to be real. Where younger bands simply bring the bouncy mix of guitars and synth, Murphy has the life experience to make it work. It may be that sole fact why he's packing it in after This is Happening. As he said himself during the gig "maybe I'm just old." If that's what being old does, I would frankly like to see a little more of it.
At show’s end, there was an air of melancholic happiness drifting through the audience. If this really was it, you couldn’t tell by James Murphy’s demeanor. True to form, after a fitting finale of New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down, he left the stage with a relaxed wave.
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