The Strokes
Pepsi Music Club, Vienna, Austria.
9 March, 2002
FM broadcast
In
April 2002, the N.M.E. (New Musical Express) declared The Strokes as “undoubtedly
the most exciting – and most hyped – band of the last two years.” (mmm…what about
The White Stripes? I guess they forgot about them.) The
weekly music paper certainly played a major role in hyping and promoting them.
After hearing ‘The Modern Age’ EP in December 2000 it became a regular on the office
stereo system being played virtually non-stop. It was decided that they should
be added to the annual NME show along with …And You Will Know Us By The Trail
Of Dead, Rocket From The Crypt and Peaches on 3rd February 2001.
They
featured in the paper at the end of January, to coincide with their appearance
a week later at the Astoria in London. Like the White Stripes (July 2001) it
took them a week to break in the UK. They appeared on the front cover in June
and a month later were on the UK TV show ‘Top of the Pops’. The debut album
‘Is This It’ had gone platinum by the end of the year. Weekly music papers like NME, at that time were essential in spotting and
promoting new bands such as the Strokes, leading to massive sales in their own
country just like Nirvana, Pixies and countless other American bands before
them.
A
reader of the 100 Greatest Bootlegs blog emailed me recently to comment on the
lack of availability of bootlegs by the band. After a search I had to agree
that apart from those streaming on Youtube, locating files to download was hard
going. Searching the largest torrent tracker for recordings from the early
years 2001-03, turned up a 12-minute FM broadcast of four tracks from the
Reading Festival 2002. There were three other FM broadcasts from 2002, the
Paradiso in Amsterdam, Birmingham Academy and Pepsi Club in Vienna. This
posted show has the best sound quality and performance although Birmingham was comparable
but this just had the edge. The Paradiso show was a rather subdued recording
lacking in clarity.
It
was a different story seventeen to nineteen years ago when the following were readily
available:
- Live at Arlene's Grocery (2000)
- Live at Brownie's (2000)
- Live at WFMU Radio Station (2000)
- The Peel Sessions (2001)
- Live on KCRW (2001 Radio Session)
- Live on Osaka on Air (2002)
- Live at Zepp (2002 live bootleg)
- Live in Reykjavik (2002 live bootleg)
- This Is Legal Radio Sessions (2002 radio compilation)
Some of these can be heard on Youtube as previously mentioned but until they re-appear into circulation enjoy 'Is This It' live from Vienna.
Lineage: FM - Sony Dat TCD-D7 - HDD - WAV – FLAC
01. Meet Me In The Bathroom
02. The Modern Age
03. Someday
04. Ze Newie (aka early version of "Between Love And Hate")
05. NYC Cops
06. Soma
07. Hard To Explain
08. Is This It
09. When It Started
10. Barely Legal
11. Alone Together
12. Trying Your Luck
13. Last Nite
14. Take It Or Leave It
