James wants to wake up in his apartment in New York’s West Village everyday; to make coffee, to listen to music, and walk his dog. James Murphy wants to have kids.
He is a normal guy.
He just happens to be a normal guy who recorded some music and put together a band that have made some of the greatest alternative dance rock records of the last 15 years.
In some ways it really is that simple; but as Shut Up and Play The Hits frequently shows, the concept of International rock-star sits uneasily on this everyman’s shoulders. James admits he came late to the party, doing it all in his late 30’s, and is worried that eventually he’ll falter. He frets that in the pursuit of his love of making music that his friends can dance to at parties he’ll end up missing out on the rest of his life.
He reveals to us that it often feels like in the process of recording his music he has blinked and years have gone by.
Shut Up and Play the Hits documents LCD Soundsystem’s final, as in ‘last ever’, show at Madison Square Gardens, New York, on 02 April 2011. The film is hung together in a very thoughtful and gentle interplay between footage of Murphy in days leading up to and directly after the show, indulging in day-to-day minutiae in his apartment, meeting with his manager, walking the streets, conducting an interview, and the real focus of the film, the lovingly recorded concert footage.
For fans of films of live music, It’s tempting to consider this “The Last Waltz” for Electro-rock; but LCDS are a beast of humble and familial persuasion. There are no histrionics or fights here. There are no endless cameos from peers and scenesters, and when the boys from The Arcade Fire wend their way on stage to lend their voices to the chorus of “North American Scum”, they are there to lend a hand and commemorate the event, rather than steal the scene.
Its unnerving, because, well... Goddamnit! Everyone in this film is just bloody lovely! Even whilst they are frazzling our aural units with wondrous blasts of 808 and fuzzed up bass in the kinetic live footage we are reminded that this is a band primarily constructed of friends who only ever set out to play friend’s front rooms and tiny clubs for the amusement of friends.
You will rarely see a frontman with a more abashed and appreciative relationship of his audience than is on show here. It’s not forced affection either – Murphy and his band are refreshingly casual and free of gravitas (nerves excepted) and aware of the significance of the event as they inhabit the stage.
They are friends playing for friends and family – the audience is both to them. It’s hard not to get swept along by all this, and the version of “Someone Great” here demonstrates just how brilliantly Murphy’s songs bridge the gap between pathos and party. Its not the only LCD Soundsystem song where the urge to sob fights tooth and nail with the urge to dance (Yes, I’m thinking of you, devoted ginger haired boy-fan.. caught on film sobbing throughout the last hour of the show. I am not mocking you... I am simply jealous!)
The content taken from the show itself is artfully done, and plays upon the emotional drive of the songs brilliantly. Directors Southern & Lovelace make a fine job of rendering some of the enthusiasm and emotion in the bond between audience and band. With the help of Spike Jonze and some handheld shots from the crowd, you get a real sense of the vibrancy of the event, and just what it actually meant to the fans to be there at the death.
The only warning I would serve is that this is far from a complete document of the show itself – the songs on show here are retained fully, without interruption (mercifully free of interspersed sound-bites and comment that ruins a lot of films of this genre for fans) – but there are notable absences in terms of what you’d likely consider on your LCD hits mix-tape.
This might annoy completists or those die-hard fans that missed out, but it serves to make the event more sacred to those who attended. The omissions scarcely detract from the film as a whole because those songs that are featured are enthralling.
We are treated to rousing versions of “All My Friends”, a masterful “Sound of Silver” which builds into a stunning crescendo beneath a blazing glitterball.
Most telling in the context of Murphy’s decision to quit is perhaps the performance of “Losing My Edge”. Here is the sonic crystallisation of the urge that drove Murphy to form the band in the first place, and as he stands apologetically in a formal suit on stage, his voice barks and wavers as he rasps through his spoken word tribute to niche music and the urge to devour pop ephemera and recreate yourself through music. It stands as the pivotal performance in terms of the film’s story arc, and is allowed to resonate tellingly through candid scenes of James alone in a warehouse, surveying the never to be used again equipment he has amassed. Elsewhere, we see him gently resist a wilfully pretentious line of questioning from an interviewer seemingly intent on writing the LCDS story as legend. Its a wonderful clash.
This is what it’s all been about, for right or wrong; that this thoughtful, humble man, wants to quit while it is still real.
Shut Up And Play The Hits is released in the UK on 4 September by Pulse Films and is highly recommended.
http://shutupandplaythehits.com/
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