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Review: Julian Casablancas at the Paradise

The set was brief (under an hour!) and contained nary a mention of his former (?) band; he allowed himself to pull entirely from the reservoir of his current album. Well, maybe that isn't entirely true: near the end of the set-proper, Casablancas emerged with just his keyboardist on electric piano. Announcing the next tune as "a cover version," he began a slow and searing run-through of "I'll Try Anything Once," a tune that surfaced (with different lyrics and a full-band arrangement) as "You Only Live Once," the opener of the Strokes' First Impressions of Earth (2006). His vocals made clear how far he's come since those days when he'd shroud himself in layers of fuzz. Stepping out into the blue spotlight, he transformed what could have been a lounge-lizard moment into something more blissful, his voice morphing from phrase to phrase, from a smoky Cohen-esque rasp to earnest yearning to screaming abandon. One thing made clear by this foray into self-reliance: we haven't seen the last, nor even the whole, of Casablancas.