Other soaked Strokes’ fans were in the same subway car and chanting along to the lyrics. Even though my friends and I were soaked and sad that night about not seeing them play, when we got on the train back home, the spirit of The Strokes was very much still alive. Disappointingly, however, I thought my dreams would never actualize after a thunderstorm cancelled their Gov Ball concert just as they were about to go on. I first entertained the idea of seeing them live in 2019, when they announced a Governor’s Ball appearance. Because I became conscious of the band around the time of their last New York concert in 2016, like many other gen-Z fans, I never thought I would have the chance to see them live.
Needless to say, all of this build-up had given me high expectations. After that album, tensions caused them to informally break until recently, and they’ve only come together for a few festivals and released the EP Future Present Past. From paparazzi-flash dinners to Casablancas’ desire to control their music in an effort to maintain their popularity, fame made life in the band toxic. During the next few years, they released records like the hit Is This It, for which they are so well-known.Īfter their 5th album, Comedown Machine, the band refused to tour because of rising tensions and the personal limitations that their fame had caused. The band spent a few years generating their sound together before they signed to Rough Trade Records. The band came together in 1998 as a collection of friends that Julian Casablancas had made during his time at different schools in New York City and Switzerland. Their simple bass progressions and radiating, rough-sounding guitar represent the sound of “garage-grunge” adolescence in the late 90’s and early 2000s.
To me and millions of other listeners, The Strokes are mesmerizing. Even though my thirteen-year old fingers could barely stretch wide enough to reach the consequent C, D, and E notes, I could feel the simplicity in the bass tab - a simplicity which created the perfectly careless sound of Is This It. I’d just begun learning the bass, and The Strokes’ simply-plucked “Last Nite” was the perfect introductory song. I first listened to this infamous “indie starter band” when I was thirteen. Seeing The Strokes live was, in the words of Julian Casablancas, a promise I’d made to myself thinking I’d break it.
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