The Upstate Life

Monday, June 13, 2005

TUL's Take: M.I.A. & LCD Soundsystem @ 9:30 Club

Wow...what a hot, sweaty mess of fun. Last night's show was, without a doubt, perhaps one of the most energetic DC shows The Upstate Life has ever experienced. M.I.A. kicked the show off with "Pull Up The People" and the crowd was into from there on out. Much to TUL's dismay, Diplo wasn't behind the tables that night for some reason, but whoever filled in for him seemed to be having a blast up there and was definitely holding his own. Despite Diplo's absence, he was still present over the speakers when M.I.A. broke into the Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape version of "Amazon." By the time the DJ spun "Bucky Done Gun", TUL was perspiring more than when he was at his softball game earlier that day (and that was outside mind you). Midway through the show, M.I.A. brought up some dude from the crowd who proceeded to tear it up on stage before security decided to give him the boot. She closed the first half of last evening's double bill with "Galang" by climbing onto the speakers on each side of the 9:30 stage which got a huge ovation from the audience. Not sure if I want to title her as the opener since it was more of a co-headlining gig, but I guess if she was the opener, then she perhaps was one of the best opening acts I've seen in quite awhile. Both M.I.A. and the crowd were really into the entire performance.

LCD Soundsystem took the stage around 10pm and kicked off things with an awesome rendition of "Beat Connection." I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when they performed my favorite track off the album, that being "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" 'natch. James Murphy pretty much breezed it through with a much faster tempo, unfortunately lacking the raw energy heard on the record and felt somewhat uninspiring despite the rocking (but much too rapid) cowbell solo. My feelings soon changed, however, once they performed "Tribulations." This song not only got the entire audience dancing, but proceeded to raise the room temperature by at least ten degrees. Hands down best part of the evening was when LCD played the most incredible version of "Yeah" ever heard on this planet. The song itself had to be no shorter than ten minutes, but you just didn't want it to end, at least I didn't. The entire place was dancing up a storm, there's at least four dudes behind me jumping around without shirts, and somehow a bra managed to be thrown somewhere from the back and hitting some girl standing right in front of me in the head. Once LCD came on for their encore, the very same guy that was up on stage for M.I.A. was invited by the bassist to come back up and shake the moneymaker one more time for the incredibly enthusiastic DC crowd (not to mention piggybacking Tyler before exiting stage right). Props to whoever designed the show poster for last night as this was a show to remember. The four sweaty, shirtless dudes behind me, not so much.

Posted by Brett at 2:02 PM |