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HOT TIME AT THE ORPHEUM
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On Saturday, the Strokes played Boston proper for the first time since the October release of their second CD, Room on Fire (RCA). To nobody’s surprise, the Orpheum show was sold out, but there was a refreshing lack of hype around the event. Because though their new album has done good business, the media firestorm surrounding the NYC alterna-rockers has subsided for now, along with some of their radio buzz. With Aussie upstarts (and objects of Strokes scorn) Jet taking 1970s-style rock to platinum heights, the band who started the retro fad are settling for token airplay. Two years after making an auspicious debut with the dive-bar staple "Last Nite," the Strokes have yet to match their biggest hit on the charts. Maybe that’s why "Last Nite" didn’t make the set list at the Orpheum, even after frontman Julian Casablancas promised to deliver it near the end of the night. Sure, that’s an obnoxious thing to do, but fans would be hard pressed to think of anything else the Strokes held back during their feverish 19-song performance at the grand old theater, which has no air conditioning and quickly turned into a sweatbox. "I know Boston, you guys like to get fucked up," Casablancas shouted in the middle of the opening "The End Has No End," most of which he performed while strolling through the aisle in the orchestra section. If his erratic movements and the open champagne bottle on the drum riser were any indication, so does he. And like their 1970s forebears, the band created a beautiful mess by pushing themselves to the brink of self-destruction. The Strokes were more loose than sloppy. The wasted Casablancas somehow didn’t miss a word, and at the tail end of a six-week North American tour that was about to culminate in a home-town show at Central Park, the group were firing on all cylinders. They played four of their radio faves in a torrid mid-show stretch; "12:51" was the night’s pop highlight, and the hard-edged "Hard To Explain" came to a screeching halt during its fake ending. Recent single "Reptilia" should have been a smash: Casablancas’s bray was as harsh as the strobe lights behind him, and guitarist Nick Valensi ripped into the song’s menacing unaccompanied guitar hook. Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. were a formidable six-string team throughout, finishing each other’s sentences as they alternated rhythm and lead roles. But Casablancas is the star of the show, and he might even be underrated at this point: not only does he write pretty much all of the band’s lyrics and music, but he’s also a dynamic showman. As such, he did his share of provoking, warning the crowd not to expect any encores ("We’re not the fucking circus") and tossing off a few mischievous Red Sox disses. But he was also happy to embrace his fans at the end of the night, climbing into the balconies on either side of the stage to sing the closing "Take It or Leave It." The Strokes may be victims of their own hype, but one thing was for sure at the Orpheum: they’re not posers.
BY SEAN RICHARDSON
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