LCD Soundsystem Brings The ‘80s Back To Life In First Of Five Hollywood Gigs [Photos]

By the time Thanksgiving Eve rolls around, LCD Soundsystem will have played five straight shows in support new album, “American Dream,” at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. But it took just one set for the reunited rock outfit from Brooklyn to not only send its shockwaves through Southern California, but also shed light on the paradigm behind the cyclicality of music, art and culture.

Friday night, the nearly-80-year-old venue on Sunset Boulevard was fraught with 1980s vibes. Everything from the flashing lights and James Murphy’s vocals—part David Byrne, part Fred Schneider—on stage, to the proclivities of the floor in front of it evoked thoughts of what it must have felt like to rock out in Ronald Reagan’s post-disco America.

The slow, heavy synth of “Oh Baby” in the opener instantly transformed the circular Hollywood dance hall into the scene of a cheesy prom night. The familiar tones of “I Can Change”—with it’s contradictory yet no less appropriate mantra to “never change”—got the crowd up and moving to the beat immediately thereafter. The set proceeded with a similar seesaw between new tracks and old favorites, lighthearted love songs and more melancholy considerations of longing and regret–or, in the case of “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”, both at the same time.

The packed house featured a cocktail of young EDM fans and more middle-aged listeners seasoned in now-legacy forms of house and electro, but all gladly obliged when Murphy and company implored them all to “Get Innocuous.” The band lured their Palladium audience into purely physical expression with the punk-rock rhythms of “Movement”, then dropped deep into mournful souls with “Someone Great”.

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After a refreshingly brief break, LCD returned to the stage for an energetic encore that ended with two back-to-back Soundsystem standards—”Dance Yrself Clean” and “All My Friends”. As fans filed out of the Palladium and into another pleasant night in the heart of Hollywood, they seemed to emerge from a musical time machine that had transported them to an experience from three decades prior…

…And not by accident, either. Murphy, LCD’s revered frontman, has ranked the Talking Heads and the B-52s among his biggest influences, alongside the likes of the Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Yes and, of course, Daft Punk The shoe certainly fits in this case, since Murphy grew up in Princeton, New Jersey during the ‘80s. Chances are, his musical life was steeped in the sounds of that decade, with the Talking Heads and the B-52s leaving arguably the biggest imprints on his own style.

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So it was, then, that Murphy and company helped to revamp and re-popularize ‘80s music during the 2000s, and have once again stoked the embers of that revival in 2017. And so it is that, as the rule of thumb goes, decades seem to recycle themselves every 20 years or so—the ‘70s syncing with the ‘90s, the ‘80s with the aughts, and so on. It’s the constant churn of generations, of one cohort shaping the minds of its successors and, thus, securing its own legacy. And as their five-night run in Hollywood continues, LCD Soundsystem is sure to further their already-indelible mark on whatever music emerges in the 2020s.

You can check out photos from last night’s LCD Soundsystem show below, courtesy of Steve Rose.

For more information on the band’s upcoming shows, head to their website.

SETLIST: LCD Soundsystem | Hollywood Palladium | Hollywood, CA | 11/17/17