Next time James Murphy comes to town, he might want to make a set list adjustment.
Oh, for most of the evening on Wednesday at the TLA – er, the Fillmore of the TLA - the leader of LCD Soundsystem was a hero.
And why not? The show was a freebie, promoted by MySpace. All you had to do to get tickets was send an email answering the trivia question “What does DFA (Murphy’s record label) stand for? (The answer: Death From Above, not to be confused with Canadian duo Death From Above 1979, with whom the DFA label was involved in a lawsuit. But that’s another story.)
And for a good hour or so, Murphy and his five-piece were pretty much on fire, banging out percussive, electro-funk that kept bodies in motion on the packed dance floor. (I had beer spilled on me twice. That’s a good sign, I guess.) The new LCD album, The Sound of Silver is an excellent, kinetic affair, but with a full band filling out the sound on stage, the music was itchier, more energetic, and made it extremely difficult to stand still. “Everybody keeps talking about it,” Murphy spoke/sang on “Yeah.” “But nobody’s getting it done.” Except for him.
For LCD’s second encore, though, Murphy made a fatal when-in-Philadelphia error. He sang a slow dance, a love song, a romance. It’s called “New York, I Love You.”
This was not a sentiment shared by audience members. The thin line between love and hate was crossed. Murphy, who grew up in Princeton, was trying to lay out a complicated relationship with the Big Apple. “New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down …”
But on a night when the Phillies were felling the first place Mets at Shea, the critics in attendance were not interested in such subtleties. The boo birds rang out, and let Muphy know that wasn't going to fly in the 215: “New York Sucks!” It was fun while it lasted, but please, take it back to Brooklyn.
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