Sonic Youth live at TLA - 8/29
Last night Sonic Youth and The Hold Steady came through Philly as part of the Converse Century concert series. The show was sold out, no doubt due to the low ticket costs as part of the Converse promotion and the fact that Sonic Youth hasn't been to Philly in a couple of years, and oh yeah, they're legends. Apparently the Meet and Greet earlier in the evening was for fans sporting their "One Stars", but even if you didn't get there earlier with your high tops on display, you still got a limited edition silkscreened poster commemorating the evening.
The Sonic Youth set opened with two new songs written earlier in the day (!), that Thurston Moore sung and claimed may have different parts to them once they make it to the studio. A new album entitled "The Eternal" is slated for 2009, so we'll see if "No Way" and "Mars" make it that far.
A video projection that spanned the backdrop of the entire stage was shown throughout the show, mostly black and white documentary footage of 1969's Big Sur Folk Festival (later it changed to the first season of The Gossip Girl). It was pretty fantastic to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young or Joan Baez playing their idealistic hippie tunes accompanied by the warped and distorted Sonic Youth soundtrack. At one point a young Joni Mitchell flashed on screen, looming above Kim Gordon's head, making for an interesting juxtaposition between the two iconic blond bohemians, albeit for different generations.
Not surprisingly, most of the show was filled with tracks from "Daydream Nation", which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary: "The Sprawl", "Cross the Breeze", "Hey Joni", "The Wonder", "Hyperstation", and "Eric's Trip". Surely this must be what the band is well versed in these days, having played "Daydream Nation" in its entirety last summer at Chicago's Pitchfork Festival. Other songs were "Bull in the Heather" (from "Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star"), "Drunken Butterfly" (from "Dirty"), "Jams Run Free" and "Pink Stream" (from their last album of 2006 "Rather Ripped"). The first encore was just two songs - "100%" (from "Dirty") and "Making the Nature Scene" from the band's 1983 first full length "Confusion Is Sex"). The finale in a second encore was "Expressway to Yr Skull" from 1986’s "Evol".
The band, as you can imagine, was so loud that we felt sorry for those without earplugs. We saw many people with fingers in their ears, not prepared for the thundering wall of noise let loose from the stage. The lineup was the usual (Kim, Thurston, Lee, and Steve) with Mark Ibold (Pavement) on bass, who has been playing with the band for a couple of years now. We were a captive audience, as there was a lot to watch on stage: lots of instrument changes, their famous alternative guitar tunings (Lee had a drumstick wedged under the strings of his guitar while he smashed a second drumstick against the frets and often used metal parts like screwdrivers and files to create distortion), and Kim's charming dance moves. She jumped around when she wasn't playing guitar or bass, and her dance moves included a whirling dervish spin and lots of arm flailing. She wore a black minidress with tiers of ruffles, and flat sandals, and looked rather sophisticated for the mostly male shorts-tee shirt-Converse wearing crowd. Looks aside, Kim was fierce, rocking out hard with her band and the audience, clearly one with the music. The fans really dug her, but also everyone was in awe of Thurston and especially Lee, as they pounded out some crazy noise with some even crazier methods.
Yes, people still crowd surf (that's a foot to the right of Kim)
Gathering feedback from the fans after the show, it was clear that everyone had a great experience and relished that Sonic Youth decided to play material seemingly just for the long-time fans. Eschewing hits like "Kool Thing" and neglecting to promote their last album, they instead treated fans to some of their best work and deeper album cuts - like two-thirds of the "Trilogy". And even for new fans or those not intimate with the prolific Sonic Youth discography, it is safe to say all were in awe of the mighty racket.
You can catch Sonic Youth live tonight at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool, the last show at the park before it gets closed for the season for restoration.
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