Live Reviews

Different Strokes?

The Strokes and Wolfmother at the Bank of America Pavilion, September 13, 2006

By WILL SPITZ | September 18, 2006

I feel bad for Julian Casablancas, as strange as that may sound. Hastily tagged a rock ’n’ roll savior following the success of his band the Strokes’ debut, Is This It, he faced immense pressure to live up to a promise exaggerated by the media. When it came time for a follow-up, rather than taking a cue from his hero Kurt Cobain and making his own In Utero, Casablancas took the safe route and essentially re-wrote the first album. On their third effort, this year’s First Impressions of Earth (RCA), the Strokes sound like a band desperately trying to “evolve” or “mature,” overreaching to respond to the cries of “This is it all over again” that greeted Room on Fire. And despite the love that last night’s Bank of America Pavilion crowd showed him — people sang and danced and screamed at the start and end of all 20 songs the band squeezed into their 80-minute set — Casablancas was sheepish, repeatedly murmuring: “I hope you’re having fun . . . You’re going to get sick of us.” And yeah, the show was nearly indistinguishable from the one at Agganis Arena in April (save for an enjoyable take on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” during the encore) — heavy on the first album and First Impressions, faithful to the recorded versions of the songs, laid back but with the guitars nice and loud. But truth is, we were having fun.

On the other hand, I did not have fun watching openers Wolfmother, who played retro-style cock rock — complete with sub-Plant falsetto histrionics, by-the-numbers hard rock riffs and solos, and plenty of posing, like they didn’t know there’s been new music since 1975. The fact that shit like this still goes on — and that people absolutely eat it up — more than 20 years after This Is Spinal Tap is mind-boggling.

Setlist
Ize of the World
The Way It Is
Red Light
The Modern Age
Juicebox
Someday
Heart in a Cage
Killing Lies
12:51
You Only Live Once
New YorkCityCops
Is This It
Hard to Explain
Last Nite
Ask Me Anything
Vision of Division
Reptilia