Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – There's no second 'Reptilia' to look for or a new 'Last Nite' to replicate. The Strokes arrive at Bologna's Unipol Arena with a twenty-eight-year career behind them and a new album, 'Reality Awaits,' which distances itself, at least in part, from what the band has been up to now. The audience is here for the songs they know by heart; the band even brings to the stage songs that were unthinkable in their repertoire until a few months ago.
How can they be the same Strokes who swept the rock scene in the early 2000s and the ones who today seem increasingly less interested in being liked at all costs? It's a balance the New York band has learned to manage over time. In 2001, 'Is This It?' set the standard for the garage rock revival, spawning an endless series of clones over the years: the listless voice of Julian Casablancas and four other musicians capable of achieving a perfect result with seemingly no effort.
It's no coincidence that after 2003's 'Room on Fire', every attempt to stray from that formula was measured against their early albums. From the seemingly simple 'Is This It?' to the experiments of 'Angles' (2011) and 'Comedown Machine' (2013), and the different balance of 2020's 'The New Abnormal', the Strokes have continued to tweak their formula, never fully freeing themselves from the indie band label of their early days.
'Reality Awaits,' released last July and produced by Rick Rubin, has shaken things up. The Auto-Tune that distorts Casablancas's voice has divided critics and fans, but it's also one of the album's most interesting elements. In fact, Casablancas is among the few to use it without getting on their nerves. Criticisms from Anthony Fantano, one of the most followed music reviewers on YouTube, have even been targeted by the band, who responded in kind with 'Lonely in the Future.' One of the songs also made it onto the Bologna stage, along with 'Dine N' Dash,' which constantly shifts direction. Live, the bond with the audience hasn't weakened. In fact, the band appears on better form than it has in a while.
The wait in Italy has been long: their last performance in Italy dates back to 2011, in Vigevano, where the concert was interrupted due to technical problems and was completed with a reduced set list. Bologna is their only Italian date, and the Unipol Arena is sold out. The Strokes' new season, after all, resembles a second Golden Age, with a sold-out tour and tickets becoming impossible to obtain for those who didn't make the trip in time. The band takes the stage after performances by Alex Cameron and Fat White Family. Julian Casablancas enters the stage wearing a long black coat and sunglasses, despite the heat. This coat, inexplicably, remains on for the entire concert. He closes it and frequently clutches it with one hand on his stomach, as if trying to keep it still, while he sways on stage and at times sings with his back to the audience. But when "Reptilia" kicks in, the gap is short-lived: the second song of the evening earns a "wow" from the singer himself. The setlist combines classics – 'Hard to Explain', 'Someday', 'Last Nite', 'Take It or Leave It', 'The Adults Are Talking' – with more recent tracks, including those from 'Reality Awaits' and some gems, such as the opener, the new 'Tyrants of the Mellow Moon'.
The distance between their early days and the present is felt, it's true, but it doesn't erase the chemistry between Casablancas, Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, and Nikolai Fraiture. On stage, Casablancas continues to do his own thing. During the London dates, he improvised jokes, changed lyrics, and slowed down some songs. To a fan who asked for a song, he replied: "If you want us to never play a song, ask us." At the Unipol Arena, he asked the audience how many weren't from Bologna, and thousands of hands went up. "Then you can walk out," he joked, pointing to the door. The Strokes have recently broadened their horizons. On October 2nd, at the Flushing Meadows concert in New York, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage to introduce the band, addressing issues such as economic inequality and opposition to authoritarianism. Politics has thus entered the narrative of a group that, at the beginning, seemed to want to talk only about songs. And Bologna is no exception. Italian drummer Fabrizio Moretti unexpectedly delivers a rendition of "Bella Ciao," leading Casablancas and the entire arena into singing the partisan anthem, before picking up his drumsticks again and launching into "Lonely in the Future."
“I just wanted to be one of the Strokes,” sang Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner in 2018. A phrase that today speaks to the influence Casablancas and company had on those who came after them, but also the one from which The Strokes themselves have tried, album after album, to distance themselves. In Bologna, some people were still expecting the band from 2001. Luckily, they didn't find them. Or at least, they found the Strokes of today: less interested in repeating themselves, still capable of rocking an entire arena with songs like 'Reptilia' and 'Last Nite' and, yes, surprising with 'Bella Ciao' too. (by Federica Mochi)
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