Review: Sonic Youth @ 9:30 Club

Tonight (make it yesterday) I saw the great Avant Garde Noisy Indie Alternative Post Punk Rock band Sonic Youth at the 9:30 Club in DC. What can I say? Pure excellence and liveliness. Sonic Youth haven't sat down with age, they've gotten better. 2 encores, including the classic Death Valley 69. The main setlist consisted mostly of songs from The Eternal plus a track from Sister (White Cross). As I said earlier, the show was played to a sold out 9:30 Club, their second show at the club in 2 days. Tomorrow they will be playing The National in Richmond, Virginia.

BTW I swear I saw Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt of Green Day on the balcony, I should of taken a pic.

But first off.

The Entrance Band:

The Entrance band are an LA based Cream meets Nirvana meets Black Sabbath kinda band. I guess one called call them a psychadelic rock band, but who cares about that. Personally, I'm not a fan, although they do have some nice guitar work. I feel as if this music is kinda mainstream, I mean like, its canned per say. Not that they are, but its a form of music thats just uninteresting y'know. I'm not a fan of Psychadelic Rock I'll admit. They would probably find a better audience back in '68 then they would now in '09. Plus twice as fresh.




Headlining: Sonic Youth

Goddamnit I don't want to give a destription, lets face it, one of the best bands on the face of current Avant-Garde music. They killed live, they have the energy and the want to do this after almost 30 years and they are strong as ever. I'm guessing a lot better than last nights gig. According to what I've read. Strangely while waiting for SY to come on, I fell into a deep and intricate conversation on Indie rock with a group of teenaged Sonic Youth fans, I being the youngest of 14. For once I could share my sense of taste with one who knows of it in person. We were talking of bands ranging from The Cure to Foals to Big Black to Fugazi, it was great. Much like the whole show. Even the railing infront of the stage didn't bother me. There was only a 1 1/2 foot distance between me and the stage. Anyway, Thurston sang with his mighty voice into the great microphone, at times dancing with his guitar. There was one piece which sampled a piece of modern R&B music (not Rock and Roll but Chris Brown stuff) Steve, Thurston, Lee, Kim and Mark all seemingly laughed along with the audience before twisting it with some power distortion. A great show I will never forget. Plus two impressive encores and some nice merch.

The Merch + The Pics + Vids