LCD Soundsystem:It Feels Alright As Long As Something's Happening.

It feels alright as long as something's happening? It certainly does. For once in my life, I was neither in the bar or in the toilets when the band I was watching played my favourite track of theirs. With LCD Soundsystem, that's Tribulations. But it hardly stands alone in a back catalogue that is now so replete with certified bangers that there simply wasn't time, in a two hour long set, to squeeze them all in.

Brixton Academy is a pretty small venue for LCD these days, last time I saw them it was at Alexandra Palace and they could probably sell that out several times over, but it seemed a good choice of venue as people were dancing as far back as you could see, the bar was four deep, and the balcony was a sea of waving arms as James Murphy and his gang led us through an evening of cowbell laced disco punk bacchanalia.

Murphy, whom I once briefly met sipping a flute of 'blush' wine backstage at Lovebox, makes for an unlikely frontman. As remarked before, he looks like he's just crawled out of bed and spends about half the set milling around behind the other musicians but he commands, with ease, all that stands before him. Behind him, the rest of the band (minus Nancy Whang - imperious on keyboards as ever) are laid out as if in one of those mocked up newsrooms so beloved of television news.

But whereas the news, of late, constantly feeds us bad vibes, LCD Soundsystem are all about the good time. Pam, Kathy, and myself arrived just as they were taking the stage (no support) and though the opening salvo of Us v Them and American Dream suffered from a slightly muddy sound, the infectious groove still came through. I was dancing on the spot so well that my daily step count (15,845, thanks for asking, I walked to Brixton) got a boost.

It was with I Can Change (and its intro - Kraftwerk's Radioactivity) that things really got going in. The live LCD experience may steamroller some of the nuance, even some of the knowing archness, from their songs, but it exponentially ramps up the sheer danceability of the band. 

Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, You Wanted A Hit, Yr City's A Sucker, and Losing My Edge all emerged from the relentless wall of noise and each was received like an old friend. Lesser known tracks (Tonite, Other Voices) were equally taut and the whole set passed without slack. There's not an ounce of fat on any of these tunes.

After the band had gone for what I assumed to be a communal piss (Murphy is very keen on saying they don't do encores, they just stop for a wee and come back on) an encore of the hectic Emotional Haircut, the maudlin New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down ("there's a ton of the twist but we're fresh out of shout"), the incomparable Dance Yrself Clean, and, eventually, the emotional and anthemic singalong of All My Friends.

A song that went down as well as the touching Someone Great, and the banging Tribulations, had done earlier in the set. LCD Soundsystem may not have released any new material since 2018 (a cover of Heaven 17's (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang!) but they don't really need to have done. They've earned their right to coast on a back catalogue this fine and even the bar, at one point, running out of everything except Carlsberg couldn't ruin what felt like an emotional return to London. Thanks to Kathy and Pam for joining me.