Report: National, LCD @ Treasure Island Fest

The National and LCD Soundsystem deliver a bounty at the Treasure Island Music Festival, which was held in San Francisco this past weekend (Oct. 16 and 17).

By David Downs / Photos by Josh Withers

Buried as we are at the bottom of a metaphorical Chilean mine, getting hauled up one by one, wearing sunglasses and covered in filth like a roadie for Motorhead: it makes sense that the best musicians at the Treasure Island Music Festival over the weekend were also dealing with their own grim fates:

- LCD Soundsystem - retiring for the first time at the conclusion of this tour.

- And The National - maybe the best rock band in America, also married, older, broody, and icy.

The house fans who came for other acts like Deadmau5 don't need artists with a history. Adorably aloof Zooey Deschanel of She & Him still has a lot of time in her mitts.

But LCD's James Murphy in his wrinkled white suit? The National's Matt Berninger in his dapper, navy blue three-piece? They sang like their days were numbered, and many fans can now die happy having witnessed a glimpse of it.

The 3^rd annual music festival held in the center of the San Francisco Bay provided a lot of such moments to perhaps 35,000 visitors over two, cold, windy, sometimes rainy days. The promoters Another Planet Entertainment and Noise Pop managed to sell out Saturday, and should be commended for layering such different fanbases into a well-attended high point in an otherwise economically frigid concert climate.

Going anything but gently into the cold night went LCD Soundsystem on one of the last stops of their "final" tour. Tens years was how long frontman Murphy originally gave the project, and that was about ten years ago. A New York DJ who came down from the platform, Murphy grabbed the mic in 2002 with the track "Losing My Edge". He saw a movement without enough movement, so he recruited a full rock band to reinvent electro through releases like LCD Soundsystem and Sound of Silver; even though Murphy would hate a term like "reinvent".

Ten years. Ending with the sterling 2010 LP This Is Happening and this North American tour. Murphy's tired, he says. He's 40, he says. (And that's in "rock years", which might be 52 in human years.) LCD fans came for something transcendent and climactic Saturday, and despite the 52-degree weather, and 15-mph wind, they got it.

At the center of the pit, in the middle of the thrashy "Movement", with each and every light onstage strobing white, it was loud enough and bright enough to knock souls loose from bodies: no hard drugs required. If it was possible to "Dance Yourself Clean", the die-hards pulled it off. When Murphy announced their last song at 10:07 pm., the crowed let out a roar of "boos!"

"Don't get mad at me," he joked, "I'm not the cops."

Is it symbolic that there was no LCD Soundsystem encore? That as James left he threw a large black trenchcoat over his white suite, because he never really could get warm, despite all that dancing and energy? Did Murphy never think to jump down off the six-foot stage, hop the guard rail into the crowd and finish with us?

The National frontman Matt Berninger understood the concept implicitly Sunday night. "Huddle together for warmth," he mandated at the beginning of the band's set. The tighter the crowd got, the more the temperature rose.

It's not enough for a band simply to be good in 2010. It has to be about something. (Such is the gap between the doom of The Arcade Fire and the 'meh' of Broken Social Scene.)

The National is mostly about the drama that erupts when you huddle close to others. Drawing from their superb 2010 LP High Violent as well as Boxer and Alligator, The National had couples squeezing tight and making out to tracks like "Slow Show".

The song's popularity at modern weddings belies the fact that it's about Matt's dick, the band joked. "Only a tiny bit of it is about my dick," Matt defended and crowd roared.

In a further shade of irony, couples sang romantic lyrics like "Cus I'm evil!" to one another. "Forty-five minutes ago I was miserable and now I'm like, 'Ah, this is great'," Berninger reflected, surveying the thousands-strong crowd backdropped by the Bay Bridge, the Transamerica building and the whole of the San Francisco skyline.

Hairs stood on end for the second time that weekend amid the propulsive "Bloodbuzz Ohio". The National simply don't miss a note and whatever vocal range Berninger lacks on the high end, he more than makes up for with a colossal songwriting ability and swagger on tracks like "Afraid of Anyone" "Conversation 16" and "England".

The National closed with "Terrible Love", Berninger perching precariously over the crowd, holding outstretched hands to steady himself. "It takes an ocean not to break," he belted, as he stepped down into the masses.

He wasn't mobbed or crowd-surfed or tearfully clawed at like Deadmau5 would have been.

"It takes an ocean not to break," he sang, as arms reached up and enveloped him. They lightly patted him on his tailored shoulders, absorbing him into the group. The sound cut, the lights died, wintery darkness again descended, and he was gone.

Photos by Josh Withers, courtesy Treasure Island Music Festival. Meanwhile, you can see David Downs'  report on the 2009 event right here.