"This Is Happening": the third album by LCD Soundsystem

i mean sure, the farewell shows are a grand statement/farewell/nostalgia fest/masturbatory & overlong setlist/"cementing the status of LCD at the top of the 2000s canon" gesture, but i can't imagine who caught the band in 2003-05 actually ENJOYING these shows more than one of those early, tossed-off sets when the band was hungry, urgent and far more unhinged

"Better" is objective; it's spectacle vs. intimacy. I mean, I am glad I saw them when they were playing songs like "All My Friends" and "Dance Yrself Clean" and stuff. Also, there's a difference between seeing a band that's new and pretty good and being blown away vs. seeing a band you're really familiar with and adore and being blown away and I definitely, definitely savor the latter much more.

ilxor, did you actually see one of the shows people are talking about now?

i have not seen any of the Terminal 5 shows, no

i did see LCD at their most recent stop in Austin on the current tour, late 2010 i think?

xxp jesus are you really that incapable of grasping the idea that some people have different priorities and interest and desires than you?

this is the show i saw, July 2010. total snoozefest compared to LCD five years earlier. wasted my $$, wish i'd have stayed home, no challops.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lcd-soundsystem/2010/stubbs-bar-b-q-austin-tx-2bd42cea.html

xxp jesus are you really that incapable of grasping the idea that some people have different priorities and interest and desires than you?

no, not incapable. i see, clearly, that people have different interests and opinions. i am asking WHY this is the case. especially for ppl that caught LCD before the big farewell hoopla all got started.

I will note that I might have been non-plussed if they'd played that setlist instead of the three-hour-plus discography-spanning monster they did at Terminal 5

xp because they have better songs now and play tighter as a band??

was there any 'last tour' specific merch? any I WAS THERE t-shirts?

they are playing a THREE HOUR set now, can they really not find time for anything from the back half of the debut album ("never as tired" "on repeat" "thrills" "disco infiltrator" "great release") or "beat connection" "give it up" "tired" "yr citys a sucker" i mean come onnnnn

"give it up" is a fuckin monster live, instead we get to sing along to "i can change" and "ny i love you but..."? god please spare me

I was just kidding around b/c ilxor's one post read a little like an early LCD song itself.

and they've gone from quite awesome early cover songs (siouxsie "slowdive"!!!) to doing a mash-up of "ny i love you" + jay-z "empire state of mind" loooool. like, people think this is a good thing?

but i was there

i was there when LCD Soundsystem played Siouxsie and the Banshees covers and early B-sides in 2005

:(

brotherlovesdub lol yes

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2011/03/lcd_soundsystem_40.html

okay im done being a negative nancy, you guys enjoy

honestly i'd probably buy a Terminal 5 ticket if i lived in NY, anyway, so fuck knows what im saying

NANCY WHANG SOLO LP NOW PLZ.

and they've gone from quite awesome early cover songs (siouxsie "slowdive"!!!) to doing a mash-up of "ny i love you" + jay-z "empire state of mind" loooool. like, people think this is a good thing?

yeah that mashup sucks, but besides that what? "Throw" was awesome. The thing is that the back half of their debut album is not really considered by many people to be as good as their later stuff. Just saying. "I Can Change" is a lot better than most the songs you mentioned

They sucked when I saw them open for Daft Punk at Wireless Festival 2007. Like, a really bad performance. And I'll never get to see them again, ever.

Okay you realize they have FIVE album-length releases worth of material, right (first album, second disc of singles, sound of silver, 45:33, this is happening)?

"i can change" is among the worst songs LCD has ever recorded, a hugely cloying attempt at being nostalgic and touching, rivaled only by "drunk girls" as its parent album's worst track. quite honestly LCD goes downhill the more their songs skew toward trying to dance less, emote more. kinda pushed the boundaries of that with "someone great" -- which works (but barely), murphy is at his worst when he's trying to be an old softy

:O

I love how you say "a hugely cloying attempt at being nostalgic" as if "Losing My Edge" like never existed or something.

best possible MSG scenario would be murphy downing a 6-pack pre-show, another during; crumbling up the setlist after opening with "dance yrself clean" then ripping through every song they haven't rehearsed and played to death the past two years of touring

i thought you were done being a negative nancy.

thankfully they skipped the "empire" medley

I love how you say "a hugely cloying attempt at being nostalgic" as if "Losing My Edge" like never existed or something.

um those two songs couldn't be more different; "losing my edge" is murphy being lol-witty, "i can change" is murphy doing a lovelorn ballad

a "ballad" that is faster than "losing my edge"

Wait, LCD didn't rehearse or have a setlist for the first tour?

I do agree that "I Can Change" strikes me as a little insecure. But it's a great tune. Its kind of like some of the best stuff that OMD ever did. I mean not all his songs have to be epic dance rave-ups. He's got enough of those. Sometimes music is about more than getting sloppy drunk and tearing through a bunch of songs, you know?

ilxor, i think your account upthread is off. shit robot didn't exist when LCDSS's first tour took place. Also I don't think they'd book a place that large on their first tour considering we got them in a 400 person capacity club... where do you live again?

i had to really dig on Google for this, but found gig details

October 26, 2005 - Austin, TX

show preview: http://austinist.com/2005/10/26/tonight_lcd_soundsystem_at_stubbs.php

of note, sounds like it was 45 degress that night (v. chilly for Austin) which probably thinned the crowd out a good bit

also, it was DJ Shit Robot supporting, looks like ;)

i guess the first show was 2003, 04 era.

it was 2005, clearly i was wrong. always seems like that debut came out earlier than 2005 dang it

LCD Soundsystem with The Juan Maclean and Shit Robot
Wednesday, October 26
Stubb's

^ Shit Robot at the show; DJ Shit Robot at the after-party (sorry)

Oh... well, the 2005 shows were good, almost as good as the first two tours before that.

oh i'm sure!

tried to see LCD at SXSW 2004 i think, but small club/ltd. capacity pretty much meant that was a no-go

didn't play austin again til Oct 2005

Just think of the 110k people who saw them at Coachella a year and a half before you saw them.

lol alright alright, now yr just clowning me dude

I don't think any moment at any show ever has my heart pounded with so much anticipation as it did during the last "aaaahhh" before the drop in DYC. The song's p dear to me to begin with and live it was just unreal.

Cosign.

Listening to the live at Alexandria Palace album from last year now, and it just doesn't quite work; I suspect any bootleg from the final show will be disappointing. Something missing in the mix/the dynamics, I guess?

the mastering on that live album pretty much sucked

Was it one of those ones that's released a few minutes after the show? I guess that might explain it.

also my copy won't play all the way through and they won't send me a new one :(

I was at that Alexandra Palace gig ("I waaaas theeeeeeeereeeeee..." and I can confirm that they dropped the beat like a muthafucka on DYC and the place went nuts. I'll have to search the recording out to do a compare/contrast.

Okay, it's not really a 3-hour set if the band stops twice for an over half-hour dj set, just sayin'. My friend asked me if the song that sounded all 80s was my favorite and I was like "I can change"? yeah I like that song and she said she'd think of me fondly when they played it, cause I was already plotting my escape from the front of the crowd.

Is that Toby, originally from London? If so, hi!

Yeah, this is Toby originally from London, but I'm afraid I don't know who you are...

In what sense did they stop twice for a half-hour DJ set?!

jealous of virginia plain

Okay, it's not really a 3-hour set if the band stops twice for an over half-hour dj set, just sayin'.

no dj sets at the terminal 5 shows

Is the stream of the MSG show supposed to be on PFork's main page? I can't find it.

oh, I guess Safari AdBlocker was killing it

Do we have any clues/guesses as to what the final song will be?

they've closed like every concert since SoS with new york i love you, so probably that?

It's a lot easier to hate, but watching this live stream the band is on par with "Stop Making Sense" Heads. For lots of obvious reasons, sure, but I can't think of many acts operating at this level.