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Cork, Ireland
An Irish based alternative music blog. Music news, gigs, live reviews, album reviews... You'll find them here. If you want anything featured or removed, please shout. I hope you'll discover something new to love on this little experiment of mine. Currently editing the Music Section of the UCC Express and contributing to Motley magazine on campus, as well as writing for PopCultureMonster and 4FortyFour. Always looking for new projects so please get in touch if interested. Thanks for reading.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Strokes Play First Show In Four Years (Includes Set List & Comment)

Last night [Took all the strength I had in me to resist the inevitable pun there...] saw New York quintet The Strokes perform together for the first time in four years. They played an intimate London gig to approximately 500 people, performing under the name Venison.

The show was undertaken as a warm up to the number of summer shows they will perform, among these a headline slot at this weekend's Isle of Wight and RockNess Festivals. The show reportedly sold out minutes after it was announced.

I'm not typically one to post about gigs, though this one caught my eye due to the setlist. The five piece played 18 tracks and there wasn't a single new song among them. Still holding out hope for a new album? Judging on this, I'd imagine projections for early next year are optimistic at best.

I recently posted an article @ http://bit.ly/dnzCXi about why this reported reunion of the over-hyped quintet has failed to excite me in the slightest. Their constant press releases in celebration of the slightest initiative reeks of self-indulgence, and until they actually put out some work I'm just not interested. 2001 saw the release of the fantastic Is This It? and they have been riding on the success of that since. Aside from a handful of decent tracks on the follow up and third albums, there has been nothing to suggest that the debut (almost 10 years old let's not forget!) was a simple flash in the pan...

The setlist for the London show is below. Note the overwhelming familiarity of it all...

New York City Cops
The Modern Age
Hard to Explain
Reptilia
What Ever Happened?
You Only Live Once
Soma
Vision Of Division
I Cant Win
Is This It
Someday
Red Light
Last Nite
Under Control
12:51
Juicebox
Heart in a Cage
Take It or Leave It


If it's any consolation, there was no signs of a fallout between the band, a story that had been fuelled by rumours that 4 of the 5 had gotten together to record in the absence of Julian Casablancas, and that the plan was to simply cut him in afterwards.

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