Live music review: LCD Soundsystem at Brazos Hall or Fake New Wave Bullshit and How I Became a Fan

Editor’s Note: As is standard operating procedure at TCC, we loosen the rules a bit for our writers, encouraging each to write in their own voice while staying true to our ethos as music lovers and journalists who intend to do no harm to artists and peers we choose as subjects. I’ll briefly set the stage for April Dawne’s hilarious and very real diatribe on seeing LCD Soundsystem on Saturday, October 19 at Brazos Hall as guests of IQOS and Rolling Stone who generously offered my wife Haley and me, plus a few lucky artists and friends early entry to the concert / brand activation of the weekend for the Austin Grand Prix F1 Race. Thanks for reading and enjoy…

Pre-Show-Present Day

Just a regular work day when I received a text about a secret, invite-only LCD Soundsystem show happening at a tiny space in downtown Austin with a 1500 capacity. This is exciting! And there’s a hang-up; I’m hired to drive The Jamaicans to/from F1. I take my work seriously, including my side hustles, and my weekend was planned accordingly. It didn’t leave room for anything requiring a giant effort, especially having to be somewhere at a certain time to walk in with the invited folks as their (desperate) plus 1. Or in our case, a plus 3 because we’re greedy, slightly entitled fans, versus the other kind of entitled people who just want free food, drinks and to be seen at a chi-chi event.

I decided to strike out on my own to find other people involved with the event because I need to be able to arrive whenever, once I’ve fulfilled my obligation to The Jamaicans. It’ll be tricky to get downtown from far south Austin and find parking in time to catch at least one song if it’s really an hour set between 9-10. Am I up for the challenge? Yes. After my 2021 Brooklyn Steel shows in NYC were canceled a few hours before the Sunday show during the Omicron wave, and then torrential weather canceled their set at  Re:SET fest in Grand Prairie in 2023, I really didn’t want to miss this show, but I needed to be realistic. I found a buddy with a connection, but wouldn’t you know it, once I sold my soul to the Big Tobacco Devil in order to get on the guest list, no email. Why? My hotmail account that I’ve had since the 90s (obvs) was FULL and stopped allowing emails on September 30. This led to my RSVP getting pushed through by a friend of a friend, only to receive a cruel text stating that unfortunately, while Big Tobacco now has my number for push notifications, they aren’t letting me into their fancy cancer-ridden soiree. This has me hemming and hawing over whether I should call my F1 client to ask about a later pickup time on Saturday night. (So I can dance myself clean.) But I stopped myself knowing I needed to find another way to make it all work out. An obligation is an obligation regardless of a FREE LCD Soundsystem show in a tiny venue. 

Back in the Day
Thanksgiving, 2007 driving to visit my (now ex) inlaws, my ex-hubs shoves a cd into the player and it straight up pisses me off. “What the fuck is this fake-new-wave-Cure-rip-off bull shit?!” Dylan chuckles and tells me it’s a band he found and thought I’d like it, so he ripped their music for me. Uh no. Never play this shit again.

2009ish?

Do512 threw a party at the brand new Black Sheep Lodge parking lot and a band called All My Friends played it. I LOVED THEM and found out they were actually playing LCD Soundsystem as they were some kind of tribute band. How does a tribute band exist for music I’ve never heard of? I liked All My Friends/LCD Soundsystem so much that I went home that evening and told Dylan all about it. “Oh really? Remember that CD I played on the way to Branson that you called fake-new-wave-bullshit?” Ahh yes, why? “That was LCD Soundsystem! I knew you’d like it if you gave it a chance.” I’ll be damned. Then I dug in and Dylan was right, I fucking LOVED THEM! Now I get my initial gut reaction to their sound, I was hearing all of the bands that shaped and defined them in their formative years and beyond. A mix of everything bad-ass that I’ve ever loved with a deep side of snark and disdain for the status quo.

2010 to the Post-Show-Present

Dylan and I divorced in the fall of 2010, and separated that summer, just in time for a sweaty, over-sold LCD Soundsystem show at Stubb’s that was even better than I imagined it would be. After that show, All My Friends played an afterparty at the now defunct Beauty Bar, (RIP) where members of LCD  were playing DJ sets. In the back hall, sweaty, maybe a little drunk and definitely feeling that freshly separated and overly confident feeling, I walked up to James Murphy and a buddy having a chat near the bathrooms and waited my turn to tell him how I felt about the show, and him. I told him all kinds of verbal vomit randomness, touched his beard stubble, and after he said we should talk again sometime, I said ok and walked right the fuck out of the bar. It was my greatest Costanza moment to date. [This is when a person needs to leave a situation on a high note.] One can’t achieve a higher level than this and while the party literally raged on until way after bar time, I left before midnight because I knew it wasn’t going to get any better than that beard-touching moment in the hall.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016 at Primavera Sound where I experienced seeing one of the best nights of live music in my entire life. The 2 main stages were off by themselves and faced one another, with zero overlap. The French band Air kicked off at sunset over the Mediterranean, straight into Explosions in the Sky, then Tame Impala and ended with LCD Soundsystem. Just writing about that moment gave me goosebumps. Four of my favorite bands playing back to back in dreamy-ass Barcelona!

Up until this secret Big Tobacco show, I’ve seen LCD ten times since that fateful day in 2009 when my musical life changed for the better. But after having three shows canceled on me, I’ll admit to being a bit bitter. I’d even just told my Brooklyn travel buddy the week before this show was announced, that I was a little pissed at the band. We were told we’d get a special ticket sale to make up for the Omicron-cancelled shows and between that not happening and the weather cancellation in Grand Prairie, I was over it. 

Then I got that goddamn text from Greg about the secret Brazos Hall show. THANKS FOR THAT TEXT, DUDE!!

F1 Weekend Has Arrived

The Jamaicans decided to leave early Saturday night which paved the way for me to walk into the secret LCD show with my buddies and get a sweet spot on the rail.

Y’all, there’s no fucking way that any of the canceled shows could beat seeing the full band in a tiny room with under 2000 people, even if I was missing my Brooklyn travel partner and my BFF. LCD Soundsystem took the stage a little after 10 p.m. and jumped right in with “You Wanted a Hit”, just like I hoped they would. It’s a very apropos song about forcing a hit to make money and get big – like being paid stupid money by Big Tobacco to play for execs with shitty music taste during F1 for 90 min. Can you imagine the band taking the stage for 50 dudes in suits? Exactly. The irony isn’t lost on me that the same band that has a song talking shit about leaving the jocks at the door, is playing a chi-chi private party where waitstaff are serving partygoers papadum cups filled with carrot tartare. I get it. We all gotta pay the bills and retirement is real. I’m just glad the event planners wanted to fill the room with actual fans on Saturday night. 

Based on the surprised responses to my social media posts about the show, most locals were unaware of the dance party occurring at 4th and Brazos over the weekend. Between the UT football game and tailgate, F1 (Eminem played Saturday at COTA), my friend’s wedding (CONGRATS Grenita & Angela!!) and other various simultaneous events happening in Austin, it was a ridiculously busy weekend. 

James made up lyrics to songs before launching into the actual songs, kind of talking shit about whatever he was seeing and thinking and generally entertaining himself between songs – and while it was a corporate show, the band seemed just as stoked as the crowd to be sweating to the oldies together. Speaking of oldies, when the band came out, someone in the crowd who proclaimed that LCD Soundsystem was their favorite band, grinded on me several times and chomped through the whole show, loudly voiced her dumb opinion on James’ age. I gave her a look and told her to shut the fuck up, as I wondered how someone who loves the band so much missed that the bulk of their songs are about being middle-aged weirdos trying to savor friendship and their own radness while getting older and weirder. I feel every bit of this as I’m aging right along with the band. I find it refreshing.

The setlist was a blaze right out of the gate, and while I expected a phoned-in show, I got a helluva setlist from start to finish. I love “Yr City’s a Sucker” and think it was a good fit for the kind of weekend where Austin was overrun by tourists everywhere you looked. Then when I started thinking it can’t possibly get hotter than it is RIGHT NOW, (literally and musically) the band flew into Harry Nilsson’s psychedelic-punk-freak-out song, “Jump into the Fire”! Now this is how you make an already hot time in a mass of sweaty-ass people an even hotter time. I expected to get one of my favorite songs in the world, “Dance Urself Clean” at the end, so I was kind of sad when they played it, but there were two more stellar songs before curfew and heat strokes for all. Fans at Brazos Hall were treated to 11 great songs in the name of a brand launching.

“Look around you, you’re surrounded, it won’t get any better.” TRUTH.

This amazing experience wouldn’t have happened without Haley and Carla. THANK YOU for bringing me along! Carla, please don’t be offended by my jabs at Big Tobacco. My father died of non-small-cell lung cancer at 48 (never smoked) and I am unwilling to sell myself out for anything tobacco related, regardless of my love for LCD Soundsystem, Austin and the live music scene. Your team threw an amazing event and I hope you guys all get to celebrate that win. Thank you for the amazing evening.

Set list via Reddit:

Featured photo by Greg Ackerman