On April 2nd 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its final show at Madison Square Garden. LCD frontman James Murphy had made the conscious decision to disband one of the most celebrated and influential bands of its generation at the peak of its popularity, ensuring that the band would go out on top with the biggest and most ambitious concert of its career. The instantly sold out, near four-hour extravaganza did just that, moving the thousands in attendance to tears of joy and grief, with NEW YORK magazine calling the event “a marvel of pure craft” and TIME magazine lamenting “we may never dance again.” SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS is both a narrative film documenting this once in a life time performance and an intimate portrait of James Murphy as he navigates the lead-up to the show, the day after, and the personal and professional ramifications of his decision.
Pretty pumped I was at this final show….It was one heck of night.
As happens so often with events in New York, I remember this show being announced and thinking “Ugh, I’m not going to even bother, because there’s no way I’m ever going to get in.”
And then, after my pre-emptive disappointment wore off, I thought about it again, “Jesus, this is why I moved here in the first place, to be a part of shit exactly like this.”
And I looked at my calendar, and it was the exact same night as my friend’s wedding, a wedding she’d personally insisted I come to not two weeks before, and I remembered that I’d JUST seen LCD Soundsystem at Terminal 5 and kind of hated the show (because that venue is a box of evil), and I gave up on the idea once and for all.
Cut to that night, and I’m in a cab home from this epic black tie wedding and I’m still kind of drunk and it’s only 130 and I decide to hit a bar on the way home. I walk in (to the Woods, for those mapping my movements) and I distinctly remember people looking at me like I’d just stepped off of a spaceship. I mean, it’s Williamsburg, people wear all kinds of weird shit on Saturday nights, including suits, what was the big deal?
And then somebody grabbed my arm and looked me dead in the eye with something approaching reverence and asked, “Dude, did you just come from the show?”
And then it all came flooding back to me, the stuff I’d chosen to forget. Last show ever. Everyone’s gonna go bananas for All My Friends. Please come in formalwear. And for one drunken, selfish moment I actually considered making that my story for the night. Yeah, I was at MSG. Yeah, it was amazing. Oh, you were here, listening to this shitty DJ? I was across the river, taking part in history.
Luckily, I suppose, I took the high road, though it was mostly out of laziness. I produced my commemorative yarmulke, emblazoned with the names of the bride and groom, and shrugged, “Nope, I was at a wedding at the Navy Yard, sorry.”
I want this documentary to be good. I want it to be Rattle and Hum good. I want to be able to get some kind of taste for what that night was like, because I know that it must have been pretty special.
