The Strokes: Shepherd's Bush, 25/1/06

I went to my first gig of the year last night, a fairly last minute dash to see The Strokes at Shepherd's Bush Empire. They're not a band I would say I'm necssarily a huge fan of, but a friend of mine had a spare ticket, and since there's generally quite a lot of hype around them I thought it would be good to see them first hand; I often think that seeing a band live is the best way to see if you like them or not.

I obviously knew the old favourites from their breakthrough album, and songs like "Last Nite" were the best moments of the night for me. There are some cracking songs on the new record as well - "You Only Live Once" and "Juicebox" stand out in particular. It wasn't a show that had much change in dynamics - it's pretty straight rock 'n' roll really, there's nothing revolutionary or even original about them, but much of it was very good fun. "New York City Cops" was the standout, though I don't actually know what record it'There more teenyboppers there than I've become accustomed to at gigs (more a reflection on the types of concerts I attend these days than anything else, methinks) with even a bit of the old crowd-surfing, not something I've indulged in for many a year. Christ, I'm sounding older than 24...

I noticed about halfway through the gig that the band look almost exactly the same as they did when they burst onto the scene 5 years ago - same clothes, same hair, same strut. For such a seemingly image-conscious group, it's slightly perplexing that they haven't evolved in that department too. There was a time when they first arrived when it seemed like they would be one of the bands to define the noughties as Oasis, Nirvana and Radiohead had defined the nineties. They're miles away from that now though... I wonder which bands will go down in history as defining this decade? Coldplay, certainly. The White Stripes, hopefully. The Arctic Monkeys, possibly. We shall see.

Here's the setlist, from nme.com:

'Heart In A Cage'
'The Modern Age'
'Juicebox'
'Evening Sun'
'The End Has No End'
'Barely Legal'
'Hawaii'
'On The Other Side'
'Red Light'
'Last Nite'
'Hard To Explain'
'Razorblade'
'Trying Your Luck'
'What Ever Happened?'
'You Only Live Once'
'Someday'
'15 Minutes'
'Reptilia'
'12:51'
'New York City Cops'
'Under Control'
'Soma'
'I Can't Win'
'Take It Or Leave It'