Smashing an ace out from the start with a trio of dance-fuelled bangers, LCD kicked off proceedings with Yr City’s A Sucker, Daft Punk is Playing At My House and I Can Change, bringing the entire venue to their feet within moments. Manic strobe lights collided with a disco ball dangling atop the stage, splintering beams of light across the arena in a stunning display of colour and movement.
Meanwhile the band – armed with guitars, bass, a partition of synths and two drum kits – prompted the crowd to shift into party mode, where they resided for the entire set. The sheer force of tracks like Get Innocuous! and Movement hit the audience like a loaded cannon, while mellower tracks Someone Great and Home twinkled through the arena and floated up into the stands.
The ever-charming James Murphy won the crowd right from the start. The perfect frontman, his gratitude was infectious, and his delivery near faultless, which was why his stab at Australia’s notorious homophobe Margaret Court was so compelling. “Thank you very much for coming to see us here, it’s a very nice return for us,” he began. “It would be nice to come and play a bunch of nights – and I’m not typically the type to get in the face of old people for being ignorant – but when you come at my family and you come at my friends, you gotta go fuck yourself. So let’s come back next year and let’s rename this place.”
An hour and a half into the set, Murphy delighted the crowd with New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. After a brief break (the band insisted it wasn’t an encore) the band returned to the stage with a heroic two-song finale of Dance Yrself Clean and All My Friends, resulting in an immense singalong that united the crowd in a way only a stadium show could manage. These songs may be over a decade old, but unlike many of their contemporaries’ outputs, LCD Soundsystem’s tracks are timeless wonders, which will sound even grander another decade down the track.
This show was a rarity, marking as one of those extraordinarily uplifting concerts that connected the entire audience, from everyone up in the stands to way down in the pit. And while the masses gathered at the LCD alter for a huge arena showdown, not once did the experience feel contrived or overdone.
Anthemic in all the right places with limited embellishments, an impeccable mix and phenomenal light show, this was a performance that will be stored in the memory banks for years.
Highlight: When James Murphy told Margaret Court to go fuck herself.
Lowlight: That Margaret Court wasn’t present to hear it.
Crowd Favourite: All My Friends
