A surprise Nashville road trip to dance ourselves clean with LCD Soundsystem at Re:Set Music Festival
Summer is a season marked by different starting points, from the unofficial events like schools ending or Memorial Day holiday weekend parties to the official solstice date. In the music world, summer does not truly begin until the start of music festival season.
The recent three day Re:Set Music Festival touched down in Nashville’s Centennial Park with a Friday opening night lineup headlined by LCD Soundsystem.
James Murphy and company brought their brand of New York city dance rock to the festival bill featuring such indie stalwarts as Toro y Moi, James Blake to newer acts like Steve Lacy, Clairo and the internet’s favorite female power trio, Boygenius, who closed out the weekend as Sunday’s headliner.
On this Friday night, LCD Soundsystem took the stage under a crystal blue Nashville sky just before sunset to a multigenerational crowd eager to catch a band that has rarely toured in recent years. I heard more than a few people throw around the term “bucket list” in anticipation.
The 14 song setlist spanned the band’s over two decade long catalog, with a mix of songs from their 4 studio albums sequenced with familiar favorites drawing applause at even the first hints of a particular synth tone or drum machine snare.
The signature LCD Soundsystem style of thick, low-end production blending elements of electronic dance music with the instrumentation of rock, funk and punk was on display from the first repetitive beats and bass notes of “Get Innocuous!” off of 2007’s Sound of Silver letting the crowd know it was time to dance. While starting originally as a recording project for producer/writer Murphy, the band has evolved to become a large group of musicians capable of recreating every last tone and layer of sound from their studio recordings.
The band brought a harmonious energy to the stage, with each band member in lockstep with each other all led by Murphy’s vocals, ranging from the talk-singing fashion of “Losing My Edge” to his crooning immediacy on “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down” with microphone cord coiled around his wrist singing from atop a stage monitor.
While many electronic-leaning acts rely on a DJ or loops to recreate their sound, the band’s multiple analog synthesizers created a rich, syrupy timbre that mixed with the propulsive, rhythmic backbone of drums and bass to bring a beautiful density to their dance music stylings.
Visually, the show matched the fervor of the music, highlighted by a giant disco ball hovering above the stage bouncing the multitude of crisscrossing lights in every direction with a large hi-def screen backdrop providing subtle video crossfades.
The show ended with a one-two punch of “Dance Yrself Clean” into the anthemic repetitive piano and drum vigor of “All My Friends” to close out on a high note.
For a band that famously has already retired once, LCD Soundsystem sounded as fresh as ever on this sweaty summer night in Music City.
