Albert Hammond Jr.

What I learned from the last Albert Hammond Jr. Show was that he was the life line of The Strokes. His last two solo albums were The Strokes albums that should’ve been. I can understand why he cut himself off from Julian Casablanca’s leash. Lately Julian has been a drunk mumbling gong show on stage that he makes the Gallager brothers look sober. Albert has his own vices but at least he has his shit together.
Only 150-​ish people showed up, therefore, it was a very intimate show. I arrived last minute and was able to walk right up to the stage. The show wasn’t advertised well. I actually read about the gig on a Strokes fan forum.
Albert has ridiculously addictive garage beats. Normally I just roll my eyes when a garage band has 3 guitarists on stage but in Albert’s case it thickened a lot of the riffs and melody lines.
My jaws hurt from the wide cheek to cheek smile that stuck for the whole show.
Albert played for an hour. Considering that I’ve never seen a Strokes show outside Coachella last more than 45 minutes I considered tonight to be a very generous set. It was one of those quality vs. quantity moments.
There was no actual set dec, just Hammond and his band. Everyone’s eyes were fixated on the life line of one of the most influential garage rock bands of the late early 2000’s to even recognize anything else around them.
Aside from butchering Everyone Gets A Star it was one of the best Venue shows that I’ve attended in the past 5 years.
It was a little freaky that he didn’t break a sweat. There a fun cocky sense of charisma that is more college prankster than it is arrogance.
The crowd was really into the set. The band were fantastic and Albert killed it in the vocal delivery.
He performed a few Strokes songs that made up for how short changed I felt during the Coachella performance. His own material is actually stronger than his bread and butter gig.