As we recently pointed out, it’s been a very Meet Me in the Bathroom-friendly fall/early winter in NYC with residencies from a handful of bands that defined the city’s indie rock boom two decades ago. I recently caught the return of TV On The Radio, and last night (12/5) I headed to Knockdown Center for what’s becoming an annual NYC tradition: the LCD Soundsystem residency. This year’s residency has been taking place across three weekends (Nov. 21-24, Dec. 4-8, and Dec. 12-15) with different openers each weekend (Poolside weekend one, Gustaf weekend two, Fcukers weekend three), and other treats like a pop-up from the James-Murphy-co-owned wine bar Four Horsemen in Knockdown Center’s backroom, a DFA Records swap-meet record store pop-up, and an afterparty rave that started as soon as LCD left the stage. Instead of last year’s Tri-Boro Tour that also included shows at Terminal 5 and Brooklyn Steel, James Murphy said that he chose to do all of this year’s shows at Knockdown Center because the ability to take over the entire venue with all these extra goodies made last year’s Knockdown shows “pretty magical,” and he said that the crowds “were the most responsive we’d had on the run,” adding, “It felt like the New York I moved into in the late ’80s. We loved it.”
Indeed, Knockdown Center’s warehouse vibes felt like the perfect place to see LCD Soundsystem. I wasn’t there in 2002 at the first LCD Soundsystem show in London, or at the DFA parties that James Murphy threw before that, but I could feel how the Knockdown takeover was at least inspired by those vibes. The version of LCD Soundsystem that I saw on stage last night was powerful and larger-than-life enough to play Madison Square Garden again, but I’m sure I’m not alone in appreciating their decision to split it up into 12 shows in a former factory building instead.
James Murphy and the rest of his many-membered band kicked off the show with a bang, doing the one-two-three punch of “You Wanted A Hit” > “Tribulations” > “Movement” that’s become a staple over the years. Right off the bat, the light show (including lights all along the banisters that line the sides of the football field-sized crowd) was a sensory overload, and the band were bringing their songs to life with an energy that goes beyond just recreating the classic album versions. There’s a huge rave element to the shows, but also a jam-band element to the way all of those live musicians feed off each other and segue one song into the next. And LCD do it all in a way that even people who cringe at terms like “raves” and “jam bands” can have a blast. (Not that his stage banter wasn’t appreciated, but my least favorite parts of the show were when James stopped to talk. LCD know how to create a vibe that’s best when it’s uninterrupted.) They’ve got an arsenal of would-be or should-be hits (maybe they don’t do hits), and even with “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” being left off of this show, you couldn’t argue with the setlist. It was one fan-favorite after the next, and newer songs like “New Body Rhumba” (from the 2022 soundtrack for Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of White Noise) and the just-released “X-Ray Eyes” sucked us all in just as much as time-tested gems like “I Can Change,” “Time To Get Away,” “Get Innocuous!,” “Someone Great,” “Losing My Edge,” “Dance Yrself Clean,” and the set-ending singalong “All My Friends.” They made the two-and-a-half-hour set (intermission and second encore included) fly by in what felt like half that amount of time.
As Bill also wrote in his review of the 2022 residency, if you’re at all on the fence about catching one of these shows, just go. As of this posting, you’ve got seven chances left on this run.
Check out last night’s setlist, some videos, and the poster for the residency below, and see the four weekend one setlists at Setlist.fm.
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LCD Soundsystem @ Knockdown Center – 12/5/24 Setlist (via)
You Wanted a Hit
Tribulations
Movement
Tonite
I Can Change
Other Voices
Time To Get Away
American Dream
Get Innocuous!
Yr City’s a Sucker
new body rhumba
Someone Great
Losing My Edge
(intermission)
Encore 1:
x-ray eyes
On Repeat
Home
Encore 2:
Dance Yrself Clean
New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
All My Friends