2010年 01月 9日 土曜日 13:28

Fri 8 Jan – Sonic Youth, Sic Alps

Well this was certainly the calmest show I've ever been to (outside of Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones). The crowd was a bunch of indie stiffs with horn-rimmed glasses and beards, and all they could muster was a simple head-bobbing all the way through (notable exception being the pit during the 1st encore when they played "'Cross The Breeze"). I didn't even sweat! Though at some point some guy was crowd-surfing.

Opening band Sic Alps were boring. They just seemed like a Sonic Youth ripoff to me. But I guess that's appropriate.

Before the show started, me and my friend were standing in the lobby when we happened to notice none other than Lee Ranaldo standing near the entrance talking to some dude! I didn't say anything to him though.

The setlist was kinda disappointing, with only a mere 16 songs. They played all of their new album The Eternal except for "Thunderclap For Bobby Pyn". The non-new songs they played were "Tom Violence", "White Cross", "'Cross The Breeze", "The Sprawl", and "Expressway To Yr. Skull"

As far as the actual performance, Sonic Youth were amazing. Songs like "What We Know", "Calming The Snake", "No Way" work very well in a live setting, benefiting from driving, propulsive performances that brought them to life in concert. whereas the studio versions of these songs seemed rather flat in comparison. Tom Violence turned into the thundering, epic composition it was always meant to be but couldn't due to the thin, powerless production on the EVOL album.

The noise parts of their songs also worked much better live, mostly cause it's neat to see how they do it, but also cause noise is much more mesmerizing and powerful live than it is on a studio recording, where it just sounds dull. Even "Expressway To Yr. Skull", which has never been a favorite of mine, was highly enjoyable and a fantastic way to close the concert.

Somebody needed to put some piss into that crowd though.