{"id":571948,"date":"2026-04-08T14:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/571948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:46:14","slug":"outside-lands-headliner-gives-subdued-san-francisco-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/571948\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside Lands headliner gives subdued San Francisco show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two decades and half a million performances later, you can still hear the desperation creep into Julian Casablancas<\/a>\u2019 voice on \u201cReptilia.\u201d It happened in the chorus. Standing on the stage at San Francisco\u2019s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, bathed in emerald green light, his voice curled into a snarl as he spat out his lines. \u201cYeah, the night\u2019s not over \/ You\u2019re not trying hard enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pretty much everybody sang along. Near the front, a crowdsurfer rode the canopy of outstretched hands.\u00a0This moment was the Strokes at their best. It served as a reminder that, when he wants to, Casablancas can move a room of thousands of people.<\/p>\n

For most of the band\u2019s Monday concert, though, the Strokes gave a by-the-numbers performance. They checked all the boxes: The group played the old hits faithfully, if a bit stiffly, and saved \u201cReptilia\u201d for the end. They debuted a song from their forthcoming album<\/a>, \u201cReality Awaits,\u201d which had been announced earlier in the day. They mostly avoided their less popular 2010s material.<\/p>\n

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Monday\u2019s show was solid. The fans had a good time. How couldn\u2019t they? Everyone wants to dance to \u201cSomeday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Julian<\/p>\n

Julian Casablancas of the Strokes performs at the Pentaport Rock Festival on Aug. 5, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.<\/p>\n

Justin Shin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Six years after their last album, 2020\u2019s \u201cThe New Abnormal,\u201d the Strokes are back on the road. Last weekend, the band played an unusually intimate show at the Warfield<\/a>, to rave reviews<\/a> from local fans. After their Bill Graham concert on Monday, the band will head south for Coachella<\/a>, the first of a string of summer festival performances. In August, the Strokes are slated to return to\u00a0headline Outside Lands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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If the Strokes came across as subdued, it was because of Julian Casablancas. The vocalist, who wore sunglasses for the duration of the concert, was somewhat inexpressive. While singing, he moved little. Instead, he hunched over the microphone, bending forward with his face pointed toward the ground. He sang the words the right way, but the overall effect was a vacuum of energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cSan Francisco, so cool! Such a cool place,\u201d Casablancas mused between songs at one point. Then, after a pause, he apparently gave up on the monologue: \u201cThat\u2019s all I got,\u201d he said, prompting laughter from the crowd.<\/p>\n

At other points, he passed the microphone to bandmates and asked them to say something, to predictably awkward results.<\/p>\n

Still, the rest of the band pushed onward. Albert Hammond Jr.\u2019s guitar playing is as searing as ever; his solo on \u201cLast Nite,\u201d like the design on his guitar strap<\/a>, is still a bolt of lighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

The Strokes perform at the Pentaport Rock Festival on Aug. 5, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justin Shin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It speaks to Casablancas\u2019\u00a0immaculate songwriting, anyway, that these songs still connected with the thousands in attendance. The youngest members of the crowd were not alive in the Strokes\u2019 heyday. During \u201cNew York City Cops,\u201d a boy a few heads in front of me tore off his T-shirt and whipped it in the air. When the band played \u201cYou Only Live Once,\u201d the girl in front of me grabbed her boyfriend and shook him by the shoulders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Strokes perform during the Rock en Seine festival on Aug. 27, 2023, in Saint-Cloud, France.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kristy Sparow\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Twenty-five years ago, the Strokes were the coolest band in the world. They arrived at the exact right time. Every decade or so, rock fans begin to suspect that the genre has hit a dead end. This time, they worry, there will be nowhere new left to go; the bands of the future will be an endless procession of clones and bloodless indie groups.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes when this happens, a fabulous new band emerges from nowhere, takes a sledgehammer, busts down a wall and shows the others another way. It\u2019s what Nirvana did in 1991, and it\u2019s what the Strokes did, 10 years later, with their debut album, \u201cIs This It,\u201d kicking off the 2000s garage rock revival.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

Fans watch the Strokes perform on the NOS stage during the NOS Alive festival on July 6, 2022, in Lisbon, Portugal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pedro Gomes\/Redferns<\/p>\n

In many respects, the Strokes weren\u2019t particularly novel. Their sound borrowed liberally from the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. But they were very, very good and very, very cool \u2014 New York cool, the sort of cool that makes you curse your luck for not having been born the son of a\u00a0model agency executive<\/a>, like singer Casablancas. The members of the Strokes met at private schools, shared apartments, practiced relentlessly and went out drinking in the East Village. The bands\u2019 first songs were brief, flawless bursts of energy, propelled forward by Casablancas\u2019 detached drawl. Within a few months, New York City was full of Strokes look-alikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that weren\u2019t interested in rock\u2019n\u2019roll \u2014 who, in fact, hated it, because it was their parent\u2019s music\u00a0\u2014 got into it,\u201d Gordon Raphael, the producer of \u201cIs This It,\u201d told Vice in an interview.<\/a> \u201cThere were people that told me \u2018We love techno. But as soon as we heard The Strokes, I got a leather jacket and a guitar\u00a0\u2014 and now I have a band.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The band\u2019s second album, \u201cRoom on Fire,\u201d was excellent but retread the same ground as \u201cIs This It.\u201d The third, 2006\u2019s \u201cFirst Impressions of Earth,\u201d arrived to less fanfare, and the band spent some years on hiatus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Strokes perform at the Pentaport Rock Festival on Aug. 5, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.<\/p>\n

Justin Shin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Casablancas drank heavily and sparred with interviewers. The Guardian cites<\/a> a former Strokes manager who referred to Casablancas as \u201ca drunken nightmare to society as a whole.\u201d In the middle of a 2003 interview<\/a> with Neil Strauss for Rolling Stone, Casablancas, apparently frustrated, switched off the tape deck and walked away. After a few minutes, he returned, sat on Strauss\u2019 lap and kissed him on the neck seven times.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I can wipe dry, he is out the door, rolling himself home in a discarded wheelchair he finds abandoned outside,\u201d Strauss wrote.<\/p>\n

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In later years, the band\u2019s output and touring turned sporadic. Casablancas started a second project, the Voidz. As he explained to the Times in a 2020 interview<\/a>, he was tired of playing the same old hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re growing up and imagining playing music, it is for the excitement, but the one aspect of doing it for a living that is a sadness you don\u2019t anticipate is that you play songs so much, you become sick of them,\u201d Casablancas\u00a0said. \u201c… To some extent, that\u2019s why I play with [side-project] Voidz. I couldn\u2019t care less about playing \u2018Last Nite.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Strokes perform during the Rock en Seine festival on Aug. 27, 2023, in Saint-Cloud, France.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kristy Sparow\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

No wonder, then, that the highlight of Monday\u2019s show was the final song before the encore, \u201cOde to the\u00a0Mets.\u201d The five-minute power ballad is from \u201cThe New Abnormal.\u201d It\u2019s one of the group\u2019s best, definite proof that the Strokes aren\u2019t just a nostalgia act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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At the song\u2019s opening guitar line, several audience members screamed. Casablancas, clutching his side with one arm, sounded genuinely mournful as he sang the first verse: \u201cHope that you find it, hope that it\u2019s good \/ Hope that you read it, think that you should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over five minutes, the song built slowly. The guitars started steady, growing louder and more insistent. By the time he reached his last verses, Casablancas was howling. His fans howled with him.<\/p>\n

Then it ended, and the colored lights went out. Casablancas held up a peace sign and walked offstage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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