Whatever happened to The Strokes?
It’s a fair question. After arriving in a blaze of critical acclaim and commercial success, they did the one thing impossibly good looking, independently wealthy rock stars should do. They stopped chasing the fame train. The band that represented the pinnacle of cool didn’t just drop off the radar. They cultivated an air of utter indifference to the machinations of the rock and roll business.
For singer and songwriter Julian Casablancas, there was nothing left to prove. As each Strokes album came and went with less fanfare than the previous one, they started enjoying the freedom. For Casablancas, that meant working with Daft Punk and Andy Samberg. Making music is meant to be fun, right?
In Pictures: Former Strokes frontman pushes boundaries in Vancouver show
Last night at Vancouver’s half-full Commodore Ballroom, Casablancas and his new band, The Voidz, gave a remarkable demonstration of how a once-infallible rock star runs, not walks, from mainstream appeal.
It started oddly, the slow groove of “Xerox” moulding itself around the singer’s incomprehensible, distorted vocals, before the band flung themselves into acid bossa nova with “Father Electricity,” dialling the madness up even further with Slipknot style full metal racket of “Mutually Assured Destruction.”
Leaping from freshly created genre to genre, while Casablancas slouched around the stage like a disgruntled teenager The Voidz picked up the slack, drummer Alex Carapitis stealing the show and demonstrating incredible technique in the face of diverse demands.
“This is a cover,” announced Casablancas, before launching into The Strokes’ “Ize of the World,” initiating the first genuine bouncing from an understandably puzzled crowd. Swerving from high-speed New York hardcore to Velvet Underground groove (the excellent “Crunch Punch”), Casablancas’ too-cool-to-care attitude began to mellow as the show drew on.
“Beautiful f***ing town,” he smiled, assuring the crowd that he really did love Vancouver, “I don’t say that in every town, I swear. You look good. You smell good. You talk right.”
While two-guitar simplicity was at the heart of The Strokes’ early success, Casablancas’ latest offerings were consistently complex and challenging, uneasy harmonies fighting for space among disorientating rhythms and his fuzzy, impenetrable vocals. You could interpret it as a middle finger to his fans or his legacy. Or you could interpret it as a musician pushing the limits of what a modern audience expects from its rock bands.
An encore of The Strokes’ ballad “I’ll Try Anything Once,” accompanied by a sole keyboard, was a reminder of how talented a classic songwriter Casablancas can be.
“Thank you, you’ve been a wonderful audience,” he smiled, before dropping the mic and walking off, having entertained and perplexed in equal measure. As The Strokes sang 13 years earlier, take it or leave it.
