"AUSTIN, TX - MARCH 11: Musician Julian Casablancas of The Strokes performs onstage at Samsung Galaxy Life Fest at SXSW 2016 on March 11, 2016 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for Samsung)"

Photography by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images

Sadly, The Strokes didn’t debut any new material at South by Southwest. Instead, the New York City outfit used their Friday night headlining set at Samsung’s Galaxy Fest to simply pummel the drunken crowd of rambunctious techies with an hour of early oughts nostalgia. Hell, they tossed out so many crowd favorites that diehards might have asked, “Is this hit?”



Frontman Julian Casablancas was as wry and distant as ever, oscillating back and forth across the neon-drenched stage as a looming shadow. Between songs, he humorously scat a few lines from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ single “Can’t Stop”, later feeding into the crowd’s post-encore rage (“One! More! Song!”) by insisting they’d play three, instead.

Let’s not forget that The Strokes just closed out this past year’s ACL, and that setlist featured all of Friday night’s offerings. So seeing them return to the Texas capital was curious, but the crowd nevertheless ate it up. Who wouldn’t? It was an intimate club show with floors that lit up under the audience, seemingly recalling their iconic MTV 2$ Bill gig from 2002.

No, it was one hell of a rock ‘n’ roll soiree. (Dan Auerbach’s The Arcs served as the night’s openers, only this idiot writer was stuck waiting in line for the fire marshall to free up some space.) There was an element of cool to the whole event, one that was surely embellished by The Strokes and their knack for making every moment feel cinematic.

Eh, it’s kind of hard to explain.

Setlist:

Someday

Heart in a Cage

Barely Legal

Machu Picchu

Killing Lies

Hard to Explain

Last Nite

Reptilia

New York City Cops

Automatic Stop

Take It or Leave It

Encore:

Is This It

What Ever Happened?

The Modern Age