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2004-08-28 - 10:12 a.m.
sonic nurse
Sonic Youth setlist 8/11/04
I Love You Golden Blue
Stones
Pattern Recognition
Unmade Bed
Eric’s Trip
Mariah Carey And The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream
Burning Spear
Schizophrenia
New Hampshire
Paper Cup Exit
Dude Ranch Nurse
Drunken Butterfly
encore 1:
Rain On Tin
Pacific Coast Highway
encore 2:
Expressway To Yr Skull
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In a selfish kind of way, I was a little pleased when Lollapalooza was cancelled this year, because Sonic Youth were the only band on the tour that I really wanted to see live, and no Lolla meant I’d get to see them headline their own club show sooner. And I was especially looking forward to that considering that their show at the 9:30 Club 2 years ago was one of the best shows I’d ever seen, by them or anyone. So I was pretty hyped to see them there again a couple weeks ago. I wasn’t familiar with either opening band, and wasn’t particularly interested in standing for an extra hour or two to find out how they were, so I made sure I left the house that night with just enough time to stop at Checkers (which I always have to hit up when I’m in D.C.) for dinner and get to the show shortly before SY would start their set. I made good time and end up only standing for about a half hour before the Sonics hit the stage. The house lights went down and a recording of the noise/amp hum intro from “I Love You Golden Blue” played as the band came out and slowly segued into the song, which was a really cool way to start the show. My favorite parts of Sonic Nurse are mostly the Thurston songs, but live the Kim songs came off really well. Also, I noticed that Kim plays with a slide on a lot of the new stuff. “Pattern Recognition”, which I wasn’t really into until I saw them play it on Kilborn, ended with a crazy noise outro that culminated in Thurston climbing on top of his amp with his guitar. The lighting on this tour is kind of cool, 6 big rectangular screens that flash different colored lights and pictures of flowers and guitars and album artwork. I was really happy that they broke out “Rain On Tin” for the encore, that song was the highlight of the Murray Street tour and a big part of why I loved those shows so much. It’s kind of rare that they keep playing songs from recent albums after moving on to the next one, but I guess they realize how amazing that song is live. It wasn’t quite as transcendent as in ‘02, but there were some good parts, especially when Thurston sped up the tempo big time during the climax. The rest of the encore was a couple oldies that I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen live, “Expressway” and “Pacific Coast Highway”, which featured Steve’s awesome metallic percussion. Since I got there relatively late, the place was already pretty full, and so I only got as far as about halfway toward the stage, maybe closer to the merch booth in the back. But I’m tall, and the 930’s sight lines are so great that I could still see pretty much everything. But being that far back made it kind of hard to get into the show and really rock out. And the crowd was on the whole pretty quiet and motionless throughout the whole show, even when SY broke out the classics, so it was kind of hard to get into the show. Plus the show paled in comparison to the amazing 2002 shows. But aside from that, I had a good time seeing my favorite band again. -al
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