Meet Me in the Bathroom movie review (2022)

“Meet Me in the Bathroom,” which was co-directed by Will Lovelace, and Dylan Southern, plays out like a memorial for post-9/11 NYC, as a scene and a vaguely defined moment in time. Based on Lizzy Goodman’s oral history-style book of interviews, “Meet Me in the Bathroom” shares a lot of the same problems as “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” co-directors Lovelace and Southern’s unfocused and ungenerous 2012 tribute to LCD frontman James Murphy and his band’s raucous 2011 “The Long Goodbye” show at Madison Square Garden. A lot of egocentric generalizations and weird omissions typify these two docs—and make their premature encomiums for recent history seem even more unnecessary. Remember when these bands were on the rise? Sure, but some of them—and us—are still enjoying great live music in New York City. What exactly are we mourning again?

For starters: New York City, after 9/11, gave rise to a number of bands, several of whom either knew each other or played in the same venues. It was a different time, of reinvention and creativity, and all the cool kids were starting bands. Some credit is given to The Strokes, led by writer/vocalist Julian Casablancas, and the galvanizing media frenzy that followed their early live performances, as well as their much-hyped first LP.

Other bands followed, and in “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” some of their members reminisce about coming together in New York City. They remember the electricity that lit up small local venues, a couple of which still exist. Also, the Lower East Side was a wasteland for reasons that aren’t discussed. “I remember thinking maybe New York isn't the kind of city anymore that produces iconic bands,” says The Moldy Peaches’ Adam Green. Later, a housing crisis, which followed the country’s 2008 recession, is presented as the end of an era; footage of 9/11 is also shown early on, to set a mood and establish the start of something.

For some musicians, playing live music in this presumed cultural dystopia was a strange, but liberating release. Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O seems to be talking about playing in a band when she talks about “Dirty Dancing”: "You go away for the summer with your family, you stumble into this underbelly ... this cool, sexy, like, you know ... scene." And for concertgoers, the feeling was apparently mutual. “You felt it,” says The Strokes’ Alex Hammond Jr. “The audience was excited that we existed.”

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