LCD Soundsystem - 8/22/26 - Pasadena, CA - Just Like Heaven

Wow. On a day full of really good music, LCD Soundsystem stood head and shoulders above everyone else on the schedule. And they were also head and shoulders better than the last time I saw them, which had to have been about 10 years ago at Outside Lands with Mahesh. I hope that dude is doing well....

Anyways, back to how incredible LCD was. The last 10 years of touring semi-regularly have done them incredibly well. Each song was tight where it needed to be and open when it wanted to be, with slight variations from the album versions that added to their impact live. They've created space in each song to breathe and grow into something bigger and more impactful than the album versions. They're stretching and reaching for something grander and more powerful, and ultimately more meaningful, and tonight they were able to grab hold of it and raise it above their heads in triumph and share it with those of us lucky enough to have been in attendance.

The catharsis of songs like Dance Yrself Clean and All My Friends was magical. The bass was powerful and I swear I could feel dust lifting off the ground and the air vibrating around me. All My Friends itself must have been like 10 minutes long, with added embellishments that made the slowly building crescendo even more epic when it finally peaked. Someone Great sounded so good on the high quality speaker system, with the electronic aspects of the song coming across as crisp and as clear as if you were listening to them in your living room.

The transcendent performance of the music (and possibly my impending 40th birthday... god I hate writing that) added even more weight to the already pretty weighty content of James Murphy's lyrics. They're still songs about getting old and wondering about what kind of life you're living and hoping that it's not just passing you by. They still make you question your life and the meaning that it has (or doesn't have). They still make you confront your mortality. They still remind you that the people that you care about and the relationships you have with them are going to be one of the most rewarding things about your life. And they still remind you that all those people you care about are going to die one day, just like you.

This is dance music with incredible soul. And tonight it was a performance with incredible soul.

I also had the best first date of my life a couple days ago with an incredible woman who has somehow managed to say exactly what I'm hoping to hear whenever I ask a serious question. It's like she's read a book about me and is giving answers that she knows will make me like her. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing her again (editor's note: she texted me the day after this show while I was driving back home to Fresno and said she's not ready for a long term relationship at the moment, fucking lmao).