The first Parisian concert after you-know-what, Albert Hammond Jr's performance leaves us with a strange taste and a hazy mind, undoubtedly because we focused more on observing the audience - that now sadly famous Bataclan Generation - than the band on stage, and on imagining the unimaginable.
Uplifting prospect
Without being the event of the year, an evening with Julian's band's nice guy, whose third release firmly established its author as a respectable songwriter, remains an uplifting prospect for the discerning rock fan. Like a good provincial, I arrive at Trabendo just in time for the beginning of the ex-Strokes' first song, unceremoniously skipping Tempesst's performance, a sort of English Tame Impala (you'd think you have to come from an island to succeed in psychedelic rock) (a remark not very valid for Corsica, I readily admit). The daddy's boy - Albert is the offspring of Albert Hammond, a successful composer of 70s US variety, hence the Junior - hasn't filled the venue and I find myself glancing over my shoulder and spotting the emergency exits.
Who's the boss?
Albert and his men are sharp, the basic tight t-shirt is de rigueur, with the exception of the rhythm guitarist whose shirt is as dishevelled as his guitar playing. Hammond will spend most of the concert with his guitar neck down, as if to signify that he is indeed the boss, and no longer the water carrier. Not served by a dirty sound in the wrong sense of the word - a recurring flaw of the North Parisian venue - Hammond nevertheless attacks with the enthusiasm of a teenager playing for the first time at a high school dance.
Michael Stipe sings The Strokes
The problem is that he will immediately lose his audience, at least those who haven't acquired the AHJ EP released in 2013, by launching into Strange Tidings then Rude Customers, two tracks on which his "Michael Stipe sings The Strokes" voice works wonders. Back To The 101, a New Order-esque extract from the first album, then Power Hungry, also very REM, continue at this somewhat soft tempo, whereas his discography would allow him a set full of energy, perhaps embellished with a well-chosen cover of a Strokes hit, just to win over the audience.
Heavy artillery
Carnal Cruise, another extract from the famous EP, rings in the awakening, which GfC, the first of two forays into Como Te Llama, quickly annihilates. No matter, a round trip to the bar to get motivated again and this time it's the heavy artillery: Caught By My Shadow, Touché, Losing Touch and Razor's Edge - which are none other than the 4 best tracks from the last album Momentary Masters - follow in quick succession, barely interrupted by a cover of Postal Blowfish by Guided By Voices. We finally see heads nodding, arms raising and the mosh pit sketching a semblance of a crowd movement. On stage too, there's movement, with a few changes of position between guitarists, but we're still far from a rock'n'roll circus. In Transit, the only track that almost became a Strokes song, wraps everything up and we feel that it's already the end, especially with St Justice, the last passage through the AHJ EP.
Post-traumatic restraint
There's no need to shout for very long to get an encore that will be like the concert itself: lopsided. Everyone Gets A Star and Spooky Couch, two completely dispensable tracks, weigh down the excellent Born Slippy and Side Boob, which we would have liked to see as an introduction. In the end, Albert and his band offer us a generous concert that never manages to awaken this Sunday evening audience, eager to go to bed because tomorrow is Monday and the boss will be in a bad mood again. Perhaps we should also see in this a form of post-traumatic restraint, as if having fun was now a little out of place.
