The concert began with a roar of guitars and the deafening clamor of the Barcelona audience. On the stage of the Palau Sant Jordi, Julian Casablancas intoned Tyrants of the mellow moon with an excess of autotune. He came out dressed in a black trench coat and sunglasses that he did not take off during the whole concert. At the beginning, more shy: hanging from the microphone and swaying from one foot to the other, turning his back to check the setlist. But, little by little, something started heating up. The audience, who were already shouting everything from the start, erupted with Reptilia. It was after the third track that the singer spoke for the first time: “It smells like Spain. Oops, no, like Catalonia,” he said.

On November 13, 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published its issue 935. On the cover, The Strokes, who were releasing their second album, Room on fire. Music journalist Neil Strauss was in charge of the main interview with Julian Casablancas, the visible, and handsome, face of the New York band. It had only been a year and a half since the group had exploded. They were the advanced heirs of the local scene of the seventies, concentrated in the legendary concert venue CBGB, in the East Village, and of bands like Television. The Strokes were the best reality of the new wave: they had released a majestic album, Is this it, and were the center of all eyes. Everything was going well. Or so it seemed, because Strauss, who years later published the complete interview with the singer in the book Everyone You Hate Is Going to You (Contra, 2012), found himself in front of someone decadent, exhausted, erratic, and visibly affected by alcohol consumption. The journalist described the meeting as "The worst interview of all time".