Equilibrium

Always a balancing act when attending shows. At the ends of the spectrum we have the following:

Have a bunch of drinks, loosen way up, dance and have a fantastic time; only later to be rendered incapable of recounting the music and performance with any amount of detail
or
have a couple drinks and loosen up a little while making a concerted effort not to get crazy. This is conducive to a relatively detailed memory and account of a show. This also usually ends up being the case because, more often than not, shows take place during the weekly grind instead of Friday or Saturday nights.

This Friday night, however, there was really only one option. With my brother in town for the weekend from New Jersey, a friend from Connecticut in town with his girlfriend, two buddies from work, Marty, and Kevy Wevy, it was time to get down..... And get down we did. Each and every one of us.

LCD Soundsystem's music is often characterized as dance-punk. I am not sure how many other acts exist that fit this bill. Prior to Friday night, actually, I scoffed at the applicability of this description even for them. Now, on Monday morning, having spent the duration of the weekend trying to compartmentalize my fragmented memories of my first LCD show, I think "dance-punk" fits just fine.

I don't listen to dance music. When someone mentions it, I think of sweaty guidos wearing guinea T's, packed into a club at the Jersey Shore. I also think of some of the repetitive electronic elements that characterize LCD. What separates them- particularly live where James Murphy is accompanied by a six or seven piece band- from most other dance music I've heard, is a determination to develop and mold the genre's repetitive elements into something different; something more. Add to this presence of a dynamic audible energy a sharp wit and a sometimes almost calculated indifference in his approach to writing songs, and there you have it: "dance-punk".

While the energy of the band spilt over into the crowd for the show's entirety, a personal highlight for me was a 9 or 10 minute "Yeah Yeah Yeah" that sent the crowd into a frenzy, jumping up and down in unison, while shouting, appropriately enough, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, y, y, ye, yeah yeah, yeah, y, y, yeah, yeah, yeah!"