The Strokes :: "New York City Cops" [Live in London 6.8.10]

The Strokes returned to the stage in London on Wednesday night for their first performance in four years. The band's fourth LP nearly or very nearly finished, they took the stage under the name Venison to play 18 songs of old material. They opened with maybe the band's finest work, "New York City Cops," a track memorably buried off the American release of their debut, Is This It, in the wake of September 11. The footage trades sea-sick camera steadiness for proximity, but even in grainy darkness, the moment is undeniably weighty. Perhaps, this is the perfect moment, for a band that defined the nihilistic return of credible rock in 2000, to come back ten years later, one more time with feeling.