The Strokes turn darkness into light at an L.A. benefit concert from the LA TIMES by August Brown
For their whole life as a band, the members of the Strokes have evoked images of a seedy Lower East Side New York full of beautiful rocker kids indulging vices and balming melancholy in dark bars.
On July 25, 2016, however, the band played its only local date of 2016 to push for a safer, more compassionate L.A.
The quintet’s Wiltern show was the band’s first non-festival-headlining date in L.A. in nearly a decade (the band has played Coachella and FYF Fest more recently).With just a brief new EP, “Future Present Past,” in tow, the band played it low-key as far as debuting new music.
But the show – the inaugural City of Angels Benefit Concert for a range of local homeless charities, including the Downtown Women’s Center, Waste Not Want Not Now and the Center in Hollywood – underscored just how much heart goes into all these songs of lonely disaffection.