Sonic Youth – House of Blues – 7/15/09
Posted July 27th, 2009 · Artists: Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is one of those bands I have listened to since high school but had never seen live for whatever reason (similar to Yo La Tengo until I saw them back in ’05) but they were touring around in support of their latest, extremely solid album The Eternal and had a stopover in the Big D, so I had to finally see these guys throw it down on the stage. The show was very heavy on material from the new album, which is awesome because the new album is great, but is also a little bittersweet since I have waited to see them for so long they didn’t really satiate my desire for classic ‘Youth. But that is a very minor complaint in what was otherwise a great, great show.
Just a quick note on the opener, Awesome Color, definitely are catering to the ‘noise rock’ crowd that you would think Sonic Youth might bring out, so a natural opener, though I only caught the end of their set and it was mostly waves of sound, not much to go on. Anyway, what I really appreciated from their set (and you can see from the pictures below) was that the guitarist basically was picking up his amplified head and seemingly trying to eat it like a hot dog. I have not ever seen that before, well done sir. Anyway, on to Sonic Youth….
As their career has gone along they have certainly delved less into the noise fests as they used to in their songs, and the songs are more structured and straightforward, but they still have that great off-edge feel to them and generally just rock. Plus, the names are just legendary, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, greatness.
They hit basically every song off of the new album (I don’t have a set list so I’m not sure it was every single one, but most) as well as a few oldies thrown in there for good measure. Despite that they have now been around about 25 years, they still rock it out, and Thurston is still flying around on stage rocking faces off, it is a great thing to have. The crowd was a little sparse perhaps and maybe wasn’t quite going crazy but the band had a great energy on stage and when they dive into those classic Sonic Youth solos it is just all good. It’s one of those things that you really feel like only they can deliver this kind of rock-out (similar to how I feel about Dinosaur Jr) so you really soak it all in when it is right in your face.
Sonic Youth is one of those bands that is obviously truly legendary in their influence and their staying power, and they are really still doing it so well. Even though I started listening to them probably 15 years ago, finally seeing them live you don’t really feel like their glory days are far behind them and they just can’t cut it anymore. Believe me, they still turn it on, turn it up, and melt it down. Anyway, these guys are legends and the new album is pretty bad ass, so seriously go check them out on this tour and see some savvy indie rock outs that only they can deliver.
Sonic Youth – Sacred Trickster – From The Eternal
