Daft Punk + LCD Soundsystem

How do you even begin to report on an event like this? There's no point introducing Daft Punk: everyone already knows who they are. For their only Italian date there's no ticket to pay for, and you'd need a truly excellent reason not to go. I have none, and I'm already there a couple of hours before the first band goes on.

Opening are Danish trio WhoMadeWho (or Who Made Who — it's still unclear whether the spaces belong or not). We knew them from their self-titled debut a couple of years back: punk-funk with nothing particularly original about it, but very nicely put together. Plus that cover of Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction", recorded while the echo of the original hadn't even faded yet.

Naturally they trot it out live, and their set is short but likeable.

The disappointment, on the other hand, comes from LCD Soundsystem. This is personally the third time I've seen them. The first was at their Italian debut, on a fantastic night at Magazzini Generali in Milan. I only had to wait a few months to see them again: in July they were at Arezzo Wave, where they played a fairly similar set, still very good even if not as explosive as the one that set Magazzini ablaze.

This time, though, the performance falls flat. The songs are there and yet they're not (you can check the setlist alongside this piece: it's certainly not among the best possible choices). "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House", the moment the crowd was obviously waiting for in a state of grace, gets placed second, right after a track as unmemorable as "Us V Them", and on top of that it's played even faster than usual. The impression is one of "let's just get this over with as quickly as possible", reinforced by an unusually unengaged James Murphy. Even though it pains us every time, we have to say it again and again in live reviews: no doctor has ever written a prescription reading "Play that song rather than another". Go figure.

So the show passes without infamy or praise, though "Tribulations" is still humanly irresistible. The singles from "Sound Of Silver" also stand out somewhat ("North American Scum" and "All My Friends", less U2-esque live than on record), but a bitter aftertaste lingers.

A bitterness that not even the closing "Yeah" manages to wash away. First the amplification cuts out and everyone waits several minutes for things to get working again (though at least that one's not Murphy's fault), then finally "Yeah" arrives, somewhat trimmed down. And even what should be the calculated final chaos, with Murphy bent over the percussion, no longer seems to have the freshness, conviction, and above all the power it had two years ago.

Oh well, homework done, you can go home now.

Or rather, they can go home. We — people from all over Italy and half of France! — came for Daft Punk.

Daft Punk keep us waiting quite a while, as Tomboy (drummer for WhoMadeWho, but also a DJ and tech-house musician) spins records.

The curtain is still closed when the notes with which the aliens communicated with earthlings in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" fill the air. When it opens, there it is: the object everyone's been talking about for over a year, ever since it first revealed itself to us mortals — the infamous pyramid. Thomas and Guy-Man emerge from the cut-out segment of the structure. On either side, two walls of neon tubes shift color as needed.

The crowd presses forward. From the vocoder come the words “Human” and “Robot”, then Daft Punk seem to make up their minds: “Robot Rock” kicks in, the start of a single continuous piece made up of tracks spanning their entire career, or rather fragments of them, moments of bastard pop with the vocals from one song laid over the music of another.

The visual component (lights on the tubes and the outline of the pyramid, images projected on the two visible faces of the pyramid, as well as the hypnotic stillness of the Daft duo) plays a fundamental role in what is a genuinely total show, made of images and colours, but above all, of sound. A sound about which sceptics might harbour the same doubts that have always dogged live electronic music. The answer to the age-old questions about whether the music is actually being played live, whether it might all be “fake”, and about the “they're actually just checking their email” jibe, had been provided shortly before, entirely unintentionally, by LCD Soundsystem, a band that, with a full six men on stage, is unquestionably “playing”. To check whether the amplification issue had been fixed, Murphy had hit a button, and immediately the sequencers and much of the rhythm section of “Get Innocuous!” kicked in. The band stood motionless.

But there's no time to dwell on these trivial matters: it's immediately time to throw “Technologic” to the crowd, who sing along, push forward, and live the experience. From “Television Rules The Nation” emerges the vocoder of “Around The World”, an appetizer for the explosion of music and color in which the now decade-old planetary hit will be unleashed.

Between the two moments comes “Crescendolls” with its huge Little Anthony & The Imperials sample, and, bare, Romanthony's vocals on “Too Long”, but above all an instrumental “Smalltown Boy” (Bronski Beat) that says more than a thousand interviews. This is where the spirit lies, this is where the parentage lies, this is the sentimental-polymeric world of the duo.

The glittering hits of “Discovery” parade by: “One More Time” and “Aerodynamic”, first each on its own, then merged in the “Daft Punk Remix” we'd already heard on “Daft Club”. From this point on, the kick drum starts to take over, for a second half that's kickier, notably more physical. The pairing of “Rollin' & Scratchin'” – “Alive” is stratospheric, but “Da Funk”, bastardized by “Daftendirekt”, does even better.

Closing things out are “Superheroes” (self-referential?) and, almost obligatory, “Human After All” (self-referential).

The encore is the moment of exaltation.

The robot men return to the stage in new versions of their earlier outfits. Helmets and suits are outlined in red light, which, in the dark, turns Daft Punk into drawings made of light.

The “Human” of “Human After All” is followed (a fantastic surprise) by “Together”, the single that shared its name with the duo who gave it to the world at the turn of the millennium. They were Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon. But the excursion into Thomas's side projects continues with the music of “Music Sounds Better With You”, one of the emblems of French Touch, written and produced together with Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond under the name Stardust. This time, though, it's not Ben Diamond's vocals, but once again those of Romanthony from “One More Time”.

Let’s celebrate, one more time.

Ride the wave of great music

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