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The Strokes – Taken For A Fool
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
If you didn’t know, I’m a pretty huge fan of The Strokes and saw them last night for the 13th time at their huge homecoming show at Madison Square Garden. But I’ve had sort of a difficult relationship with them in recent years after 2006’s somewhat disappointing “First Impressions of Earth.” I kind of hated first single “Juicebox” and actually had to excise that and 3 other tracks to make an abbreviated 10 track version of the album that I actually really liked. But in addition to their albums inching further away from the perfection of “Is This It,” their live shows had changed pretty substantially from when I first saw them (at the TLA in Philadelphia and Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ) back in 2001.
I remember seeing them at Hammerstein Ballroom in 2006 (on what would end up being their last NYC show for almost 5 years) and thinking “I don’t need to see them live anymore.” The crowd had changed to overwhelmingly fratty and the band themselves were playing overly muscular versions of early songs that used to be so clean and bouncy. I thought, even if I continued to enjoy their albums, it wasn’t worth the frustration of going to the shows just to be disappointed that they “weren’t like they used to be.” Five years later and I was more than ready for their comeback at Lollapalooza last year. (Unfortunately the experience was marred by similarly horrible circumstances.)
Even after landing a GA ticket to the MSG show I was worried that maybe it would end up being a crushing disappointment. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and the show was awesome. (Not like the old days) but the crowd was young and excited, many of them seeing the band for the first time. And unlike their stone-faced set at Lollapalooza last year the band seemed genuinely excited to be there. Other than realizing that I was 100 years older than everyone else there, it was a great time. I’ve been trying to give their new album “Angles” a shot for the last few weeks and while I still think it’s their weakest album, it’s got some good songs.
