Watch The Strokes perform "New York City Cops" as cops try to kick fans offstage at a Bernie rally
Aux Features Music
Just ahead of today’s New Hampshire primary, the Bernie Sanders campaign held a rally featuring a performance by The Strokes. Aside from providing us with a very good poster that sees the back of Sanders’ head and his name turned into a Strokes-indebted, ‘70s-style album cover, the rally also saw the band perform a new song and a bunch of older ones, announce the release date of their upcoming album, The New Abnormal (April 10th), and play a Talking Heads cover. While that would’ve been good enough on its own, they capped off the event with a version of “New York City Cops” that ended with a bunch of New Hampshire cops swarming the stage.
The rally, including the entire Strokes set, is available as an archived YouTube broadcast, but the most relevant, cop-centric part of the night was immediately excerpted in a ton of different tweets, including the one below from @rusteenh.
While performing the set’s closer (which you can see in full here), lead singer Julian Casablancas threw in an extra bit on the first chorus about not just New York City cops, but “all cops in the world” not being “too smart.” Soon after, he invited the entire crowd to come up on stage and the cops in attendance began filling in the sidelines, trying to shut things down. The band continues anyway, Casablancas bumping into one of the police and audibly laughing a little while singing “New York City cops, they ain’t too smart.”
The moment generated a lot of good commentary, including tweets calling it “the exact mathematic inverse of a Trump rally” and jokes suggesting that Sanders opponent Pete Buttigieg played a part in the police presence.
There are also a number of screen captures that do a great job of showing exactly how hilarious the visual of Casablancas singing the refrain right next to a cop looks.
The scene was a good reminder, too, that “New York City” cops has a long history of getting people riled up. Back when The Strokes’ debut LP, Is This It, was set for release in fall, 2001, the American version of the album ended up altered following the September 11th attacks, resulting in the track being replaced with “When It Started.”
While none of it really compares to the events of last night, check out the video for The New Abnormal’s lead single, “At The Door” for more Strokes stuff.
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32 Comments
Sigh. Dumb move. I’m about as left as Bernie but why antagonize cops, and also those independent voters, so unnecessarily? The left wing of the Democratic party ain’t going to single handedly put Bernie in office. The entire Democratic party isn’t going to do it either. We need the Independents, many of which will get turned off by stunts like this.
Absolutely delightful.
Actually, if you want Trump out of the White House, it is not delightful at all, it is foot in mouth retardedness that gives the other side ammunition. With enough of that independents and moderates are going to sit at home or vote for Trump rather than Bernie.
I don’t think a single voter is going to remember a random Strokes concert ten minutes from now, let alone in November.
1) Why would they need to remember it? It will be dredged up if Bernie gets the nomination. Why help the other side with this kind of stupid horseshit? Just don’t do it in the first place.
2) Is your argument really that saying such things at a political rally is a good idea, because people will hopefully forget later? Nah man, it is a bad idea.
Whooooo Boy what a dumb take
Except not at all. But hey, try to string more than six words together to explain how I am wrong.
You’re really really really really really dumb
Uh huh, sure thing there bub. Lol.I hope you are high on drugs writing this stuff, or are doing some sort of performance art where you are intentionally sounding like an imbecile. Because otherwise, wow, are you a moron.
It was more than 6 words lol. It was a joke dummy.
Lazy fuck, I figured it may have been a “joke”, like someone saying “you’re fat” or “you are ugly and will die alone”, so you know, not actual jokes, just a POS straight up insulting someone in a lazy, non-creative and non-funny way. Then of course you followed up your little gem with the stupidest, laziest responsible possible, that also wasn’t funny, which led me to believe you are an actual retard.
What I am saying is don’t quit your day job to persue a comedy career, ok moron? Thanks, buh bye.
You’re so mad right now haha
No, not really, I just use profanity and can type really fast. You’re coming across as a lazy a-hole dumb fuck though and I am not sure why. If you aren’t one, why pretend to be one? And if you are one, fuck dude, you are gonna die alone, unloved by all. Try to better yourself.
You’re gonna die mad lol
From now on I am going to replace all your comments with “HUR DUR DUR DUR DUR DURRRRRR.” And I won’t miss anything by doing so. I hope someday someone actually ends up loving you. Toodles, lazy loser.
Applied laziness is efficiency and I’m very efficient at making you mad ❤️
They don’t look like the Strokes that sang that song in 2001. I’d say they’re Diff’rent Strokes.
You brilliant bastard
Game recognize game.
my sister was telling me about this, she failed to mention it was at a Bernie rally lmao. That makes it 10x better, I thought ti was just a normal concert
Bernie’s greatest obstacles to the presidency include Pete Buttigeig, Donald Trump, and those stairs.
For real that top pic makes him look 900 years old.
You know how there’s all this talk nowadays about how we can’t agree on a shared reality? This is how I feel about the Strokes. I saw them on New Year’s Eve in NYC, and people around me were going BANANAS, but I was left kind of flat. They dropped this new song, and I’m reading comments calling it INCREDIBLE ZOMG, and it does nothing for me. Even the video of them performing at this rally, which I’m seeing so many people hail as AMAZING…eh.So, yeah, the processing of art is entirely subjective, but when I see so many other people going bonkers over these guys, including people whose musical tastes I often share, or at least respect, and it just totally clunks for me, it makes me wonder if I’m taking crazy pills.
You acknowledge that art is subjective but you don’t seem to actually understand what that means. I don’t like Radiohead but I get that other people do, it’s not some baffling puzzle. PS The Strokes are amazing
Well, I mean, first, I should point out that I was being a bit hyperbolic. Of course I understand what the subjective nature of the appreciation of art means. I was merely commenting on the fact that, when the critical mass of people who appreciate something that I don’t reaches a certain level, particularly when it includes critics, friends, etc., whose taste I generally share, sometimes admire, and at least respect, it can be a bit jarring. I certainly don’t feel obliged to like something because that cross-section of people do…but it does make me wonder what I might be missing. C’est la vie, and all, but pondering these things, and musing about them in Internet comment sections, beats the thinking about my job that I’m currently supposed to be doing, so there you go.
The strokes are one if the best rock bands stills around
Strokes have been pretty over hyped since they came out because they did drugs with everyone who wrote about music in New York in the early 2000’s.
This is Good Shit
yeahthe strokes are a bunch of rich kids WHO DON’T NEED TO WORKand their music sucks red hot projectile diarrhea assand not in a good waythe strokes make the killers look like LED ZEPPELIN
Thats not a joke, they are deadly serious. The Bernie crowd are paranoid and conspiratorial as hell. They think Pete is some CIA agent sent to sabotage them from the DNC.
After 2016 can you blame them?
Yes I can. When they start blaming everyone for mishaps and faults and continually allege conspiracy theories with little evidence, well then you start sounding like Trump fans. I say this as a fan of the guy mostly.