The Strokes are the most important rock band of the 21st century.
In 2001, they changed the dial from grunge to garage, and singlehandedly sent every record label on a scavenger hunt for their sauce. If you weren’t around back then you might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. The only equivalent in my (long) lifetime is the shift from Guns n’ Roses and hair metal to Nirvana in ‘91. The Strokes was a paradigm shift in ‘cool’, in fashion, in slang. They informed nearly everything in their wake.
Ironically for their rocket-powered success trajectory, the mode they ushered in was centered around a libidinous detachment from traditional displays of wealth and went all in on just looking cool and hanging out at the right bars. The Strokes never seemed like they took anything too seriously, and often sounded like they were annoyed at the burden of being on a stage.
This was their magic. Their sound was a lean under a streetlamp with a Parliament Light in one hand and the other shoved in a pocket looking for a lost gram. They embodied everything everyone thinks they’re going to become when they move to NYC for the first time.
As soon as they dominated the airwaves, and their clones/musical progeny synchronized their hipsterisms, there was no more room for their audience to claim esoteric knowledge of the ‘coolest band in the world’. They sat on top of a pedestal that most of their peers were artfully trying to avoid while not hurting their paychecks. Being the most popular hipster band in the world cuts both ways. Everyone had heard The Strokes in a cultural economy that ran on repping bands only the coolest people knew.
And yet, they continued to do their thing their way. For the last 25 years. Yes, it’s been that long. Single after single, album after album, they remained The Strokes. They didn’t do the “everyone’s a vampire from the Matrix” shift in style like U2 and Smashing Pumpkins. They didn’t go art rock/experimental like Radiohead. They didn’t compromise anything. They maintained, throughout their entire career, the aura of “we just don’t care what you think” and just played their sounds. Julian Casablancas’ laconic, waving-away disinterest within his vocal delivery remained. Albert Hammond Jr.’s nearly maple syrup melodies were almost too perfect to come off that raw, too referential to seem that fresh. They just kept coming and coming.
Photos by Joey Wharton
This leads me to the show a few weekends back at the Allianz Amphitheater. If you go see a band and every single track for nearly two hours is a banger, you’re watching legends at play. Just when you think they’ve exhausted all of their hits and you foresee a slump into “here’s that song thirty people are going to freak out about but no one else knows”, they pull out another treat from their sonic scrapbook that overflows with gold. Songs you forgot they did. Songs you forgot you loved. Songs you know all the words to.
The band came out in their matter of fact style and plowed through one of the most impressive catalogs in the history of American pop. They seemed just as amused to be there as they were at the Lower East Side’s Arlene’s Grocery in 2000 – banter and jokes more for their own enjoyment than anything. Teasing the audience with facetious choices of which songs to play next and responding to shouted recommendations, they never really shook off the intimacy of one of their old performances. They just seem like a band made for a small room. The songs, however, were anthems to longing, waiting, dismissal, annoyance, and more longing. Songs for the arena. I’ve never listened to a band sound less impressed with everything in their sight than them. I swear that is their superpower. To be bored while the world screams in delight around you.
If you’re wondering whether they played that song you like, they did. If you know twelve of their songs, those were them. If you only know three, they definitely played those. They also covered a brilliant Blonde Redhead song, “This is Not”, that the truly faithful of the hipster hordes lost their shit at. They opened with “One Way Trigger” and slid into the new single “Going Shopping” – which shines live as opposed to its autotune oddity album version.
They got the crowd back to screaming speed with a longtime favorite “You Only Live Once”, and it was home runs with every swing of the set list bat after that. Each track announced itself with its singular intro. For a band that got a lot of shit for being a one-note Johnny back in the day, their oeuvre is crazy dynamic and diverse. From “What Ever Happened” to “The Adults Are Talking” back to “Juicebox” and “Hard to Explain”, they destroyed the gates of nostalgia behind many young parents and suburban middle managers’ eyes in attendance that night. It was beautiful. It was everything it was supposed to be and then some.
With Support from Hamilton Leithauser
Photos by Joey Wharton
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