LCD Soundsystem at Vega, Copenhagen: Easing themselves back into the game

Murphy has always aimed the band at the heart of the dance floor, and they lock into a groove from the off

LCD Soundsystem (Amanda Farah)

Expectation is in the air, and for good reason.

It’s been over six years since LCD Soundsystem last played a standalone show in Europe, and after last year’s triumphant run of festival headline slots, they finally have some new material to showcase.

Yet despite the near universal acclaim garnered by recent album American Dream, there’s a sense that, with this three-night stand in Copenhagen’s Vega, James Murphy & co are easing themselves slowly back into the game, reluctant to overplay their hand.

While the high energy bounce of ‘Call The Police’ is aired early on, it’s only near the end that we’re treated to a run of new songs; title track “American Dream” and “Tonite” are closely followed by “Change Yr Mind” and “Emotional Haircut”, the latter providing the same free-spirited boisterousness that used to be the sole preserve of “Drunk Girls”.

But if there’s disappointment over the omission of “How Do You Sleep?” and “Other Voices”, it’s tempered by the polish and energy with which they attack their back catalogue.

Murphy has always aimed the band at the heart of the dance floor, and they lock into a groove from the off, ‘Us V Them’ blooming into numerous crescendos under a giant spinning disco ball.

A mid-set medley of “Tribulations”, “Movement”, and “Someone Great” is expertly knitted together, driven incessantly forward by drummer Pat Mahoney, while “Daft Punk is Playing At My House” is turned into a double-speed blitzkrieg assault, the band threatening to spin completely out of control.

“My Danish is s***, I’m sorry. I should know more,” laments Murphy at one point.

If he’s feeling any pressure, it doesn’t show; he’s all smiles and self-deprecating barbs, joking around with Mahoney and another member of the crew whose sole function seems to be keeping his elegant wine glass full.

His obsession to detail – forever tweaking, adjusting, adding drum effects – is the perfect foil for the slightly crumpled air he wears like a shield, giving the detached irony of “You Wanted A Hit” and “I Can Change” extra ballast. No-one else delivers lines like “Honestly, we’re never smart / We fake it all the time” with such a knowing wink and sense of mischief.

With notions of funerals and endings firmly in the past, closing with the sentimentality of “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” is jettisoned in favour of their magnum opus “All My Friends”.

The declaration that “This could be the last time” might have lost its sting, but the song hits just as hard, the climax a delirious mix of hands-in-the-air euphoria and joyous dancing.

Moments like this – a sweaty, heaving mass, unified by song – are rare; that LCD Soundsystem provide so many of them is precisely why their return should be celebrated.

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