LCD Soundsystem – Brixton Academy, London 23/04/10

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Photographs by Miguel Schertel

A spectacle of bizarre proportions is happening in the cavernous auspices of The Rest is Noise, the closest thing Brixton has to a Hoxton-style boozer bar just a foxtrot from the 02 Academy. Nestling up to one another with palpable excitement in their eyes are about forty or fifty James Murphy-clones. They are unshaven men of a certain age wearing check-shirts over ironic t’s emblazoned with the occasional badge and complimented by black jeans and sneakers. These excited figures are liquoring up in anticipation of LCD Soundsystem’s first show in the capital since 2007.

Such activity is testament to the very unique space that LCD occupy in the minds and hearts of fans and critics. To a certain point, they’re mythic, almost beyond criticism – dumb, literate fun, pulling out clichés from the last thirty years of pop music and subverting them with a deft, tight electronic hand.

Once inside the venue, those check-shirted men from the bar increase tenfold. They’re wide-eyed, sweaty and as far from sobriety as one might expect by now. They will also shed a tear more than once throughout the night as their beloved James Murphy rolls out the tracks they know and love. The last time I saw such a blatant display of emotion amongst the hetero indie-boys was when New Order played the Alexandra Palace on New Year’s Eve 1998. As a slip of a lad who’d only been in a London a few months the sight of grown men in Manchester City shirts sobbing into their cans of red stripe, as they attempted to mouth the words to “True Faith”, was a terrifying thing.

Coincidentally I’ve often thought that James Murphy has more than just an expanding waist line in common with Barney Sumner from New Order. Both men share a self-deprecating nature, a vocal style that punches above its weight and the spark of genius that has produced some of the most vital dance-based indie music of the last few decades. Yet while Sumner’s stuck in a creative nadir, Murphy’s latest compositions on This is Happening indicate a growth and inventiveness that should run well beyond the end of LCD, which he claims isn’t far off.

LCD open with “Us Vs Them” and its pseudo-Liquid Liquid percussive oddity hits the crowd with a sweet sucker punch which loses something when Murphy insists on playing it twice. There’s a keyboard failure apparently – or something electronic has died – yet the crowd don’t notice such things and Murphy’s commitment to professionalism provides the only blip for the evening. What follows for the next ninety minutes is an adrenalinised, euphoric treat.

Playing what amounts to a greatest hits set, the sweaty, white-shirted New Yorker explains that it wouldn’t be fair to impose unknown songs on us prior to the album’s release. Maybe his people ain’t told him that the album’s been streaming for a few weeks and has been ‘unofficially’ downloadable for even longer. That said, we do get “Drunk Girls”, “Change” and the amazing “Pow Pow”, the biggest surprise of the evening. Live, the song jumps around like a giant defective firecracker with Murphy belting out the “pows” in sync with the numbing beats. It’s only bettered by “Daft Punk is Playing in My House”, which brings the punters to a frenzy, with fists in the air, drinks spilt and knowing looks of recognition between groups of friends.

“Losing My Edge” is rolled out with a rapidity and vigour that makes it sounds even better than on record. Murphy’s now pushing 40 and sings the ironic, perverse poetry of the song with more urgency, spitting out lines about “the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.”.

Pulling out “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” as a closing card might be predictable but it’s a wholly welcome move augmented by the release of hundred of white ballons that fall to the waiting crowd as the first bars of the Broadway-stomping bridge kick in. It’s Murphy’s very own “Fairytale of New York” for a whole generation of post-e kids from the indie disco. I lock glances with a couple of them as I climb through the crowd to escape the venue and see a parade of grinning faces, coloured by a happy drunken fatigue.