DAYDREAM CONFIGURATIONS

Seeing Sonic Youth doing a live set of their 1988 LP Daydream Nation 20 years after the event was always going to come out second best to the shows I witnessed way back during the original tour. This is mostly due to the fact that back in January ’89 I was 19 years old and on the cusp of an LSD induced psychotic episode, one in which an obsession with Sonic Youth played a large part. Those gigs were going to be very tough to beat.

SY were for the most part, the first band of my generation that I whole heartedly embraced. Prior to them I had immersed myself in retrospective fanhood. The Velvets, The Beatles and so on. Early 80s staples like Devo and Talking Heads were faves but I never viewed them as a “now” band. They both had passed their primes and peaks.

But when SY entered my universe they were at the height of their powers with the Sister LP in ’87 and then DDN the following year. They were the first contemporary band that I truly invested in.

Seeing the DON’T LOOK BACK gig last night at the Metro was potentially going to be a strange time warp. But in reality it was a band in their mid 50s having a good time on stage bashing out some classics from two decades ago. From a distance, Kim Gordon looks the same. Bare legs, short dress, stroking her oversized bass. Thurston too from this distance still looks the part of the ageless eternal lanky indie kid with jeans and a moppy blonde do. Lee is all silver haired. In ’89 it was black. Steve Shelley is beefier but still wears those long sleeve body shirts with collars. Doesn’t he get hot and bothered pounding out those beats for two hours whilst wearing a tight long sleever??

Musically it was all there. If I had the time or patience I could reference my mono dictaphone recording that I taped in ’89 at the Old Greek Theatre. I could compare all the jammout noodlings in the collapsible sections of the DDN tracks and compare what the band are up to. Have their improvisations improved or stayed the same or gone sideways? Who cares. What mattered was “Silver Rocket” still sounded like the A-grade punk classic that it always was with those haunting riffs that had me fooled as backing vocals when I was a teen. “Cross the Breeze” reminded me that I had borrowed its main riff for a song I wrote called “This Dream Again” which appears on Hoova’s debut LP “Kickboxer” (for all you collectors out there). “Total Trash” still sounds like The Ramones on valium – always a favourite.

The verdict? I’m glad Sonic Youth still exist. And I’m glad they agreed to re-visit this album. Although if I had any curatorial power in the Don’t Look Back series, I would’ve selected Sister.