At ACL Fest, the Strokes rock harder than Hozier, get salty over Sabrina Carpenter

Upset alert. The Strokes are so much more interesting, noisy, dynamic and animated than Hozier.

Whereas Hozier, who performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival as a Friday night headliner, painted by numbers and cloaked AI-slop-grade rock music in politics in order to assign meaning to it — the gig from Saturday night’s T-Mobile stage headliner was aggressively meaningless.

Seriously, the band has been effectively running on albums released in 2001 and 2003, respectively, that young people continue to adore. And because many of the lyrics are slurred and buried in the mix, I’ve never given the words a second thought.  Shoot, I owned both albums in real time, yet I couldn’t tell you what any song from either is about — other than slick, New York City vibes that we all want to emulate.

Yet, this reporter spoke to a journalism class at the University of Texas this week, and the students talked about the Strokes when I asked them about ACL faves.

At the festival Saturday, the free-form guitar agenda started with singer Julian Casablancas, whom this publication flamed during weekend one for being distant onstage. This time, he was jovial and chatty.

“Our only religion is quantum physics,” he deadpanned. Whatever — the mix was bright and rich.

And then he vocalized his internal monologue.

“Just block out the music,” the rock star said while hearing fellow headliner Sabrina Carpenter across Zilker Park. “Should we go check out Sabrina Carpenter? Me and Fab are gonna be right back — we’re gonna go check it out,” Casablancas riffed.

“I always hate how they make you make a decision. I’m not being political, I’m talking about festivals,” he added.

He’s right. That does suck when two big acts play at once.

A colleague who saw the band in Spain told me Friday that over there, the crowd soccer-chants along to the guitar parts of longtime Strokes faves like “Reptilia.” Here, the band is second fiddle to a former Disney actor.

Casablancas seemed a little salty.

“What happens in Austin stays in Austin,” he told ACL Fest Saturday night at Zilker. Then he seemed to jokingly complain about his beer cup being empty, asking someone why it didn’t contain beer.

“Austin tap waster: Drink it up,” he added, possibly referring to our fair city’s good drinking water. Or perhaps saying that Austin is a party town and beer is our tap water. Either way, the rock frontman was animated. At least by his back-of-the-classroom standards.

“Sweet city limits, whatever that means,” he later said. “Seems pretty central.”

Then he spit out pop-culture-dripped party banter.

“Shut up and dance with me,” he said.

“Yolo,” he also said.

“Jitterbug!” he later added with a Wham!-era affectation before “Someday.”

During the day, per a Statesman editor, a little girl held up a sign saying she loved the Strokes and needed three tickets. Her parents were nearby.
Shoot, I remember my little brother playing these CDs relentlessly in the house, thinking they were all right. They weren’t the Vines or Hives or Von Bondies or even the White Stripes, who beat most strongly in our hearts, but the band wore sunglasses at night and at times seemed to dislike existing at all.

The fans kept bopping in place. All over. Kids on shoulders wrapped in glow sticks seemed to enjoy “Hard to Explain.” Couples made out. People danced.

From the Strokes’ “What Ever Happened?” opener — another “Seinfeld”-ian song about nothing — Austin was theirs.

“It’s always weird when you have a three-song encore planned and people say, ‘one more song,’” Casablancas said after “Last Nite.”
“Sorry to overstay our welcome,” he added.

But then he pierced the veil and got sincere, thanking us for hanging out.

“You’re probably musically exhausted,” he said.

Nah man, keep it going — that’s all in your head.