Glasgow ABC1 August 22nd
 

Hi guys, anyone going to this gig? I'm stoked cause they are performing Daydream Nation and this is the first time I will be seeing my favourite band! :)

I would really like to know who the support is, has anyone got an idea?

It's Orphan Fairytale. Don't know much about them..

Oh right, Google tells me nothing about them.

There should be another thread regarding orphan fairytale, this goes back about a month ago, but im sure there was a live clip on it. Orphan Fairytale is a chick with distorted electronics, that s all i know
Cant wait for the 22nd!

here is a clip from myspace

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fusea...eoid=26756 96

she's weird, but in a good way. Typical Belgian :D

So excited! Travelling to dublin tomorrow then flying wednesday to see the beautiful youth play in glasgow, anyone here wanna meet? Hear the nice n sleazy might be a good place to visit for a couple of pints beforehand, am a scot virgin!

hmmmmmmmmm beer

Wow. Great gig, probably the best I've seen them. Lee in particular looked like he was having a blast tonight, and Rain King and Eric's Trip were particularly good.

Setlist:

Daydream Nation

Incinerate
Reena
Do You Believe In Rapture
Jams Run Free
Pink Steam

Shaking Hell

great to hear that they are in good form.
very excited about paris now :)

Hi, Guys,

First-time poster on this forum ... long-time SONIC YOUTH fan since '83 / '84, but last night in Glasgow was the ultimate ... absolute perfection ... SHAKING HELL, for me, was the highlight ...

This old guy can die happy!

They had better do Shaking Hell again tonight. Cross the Breeze and Shaking Hell on the same setlist -- holy shit.

Another Glasgow gig another name-check to Jim & William Reid, this time after TOTAL TRASH ... from memory, at the March '89 gigs at Strathclyde Uni, BROTHER JAMES was dedicated to Jim Reid; again by Thurston ...

Exact quote, I think, was "That's for the two brothers from Glasgow ... Total Trash" ... me and my mates immediately guessed it was a reference to Jim & William, given Thurston's previous name-checking of JAMC ...'89? Yeah, they were a great pair of gigs ... MUDHONEY were equally as awesome ...

Same set tonight, except What A Waste and The World Looks Red replacing Jams Run Free and Shaking Hell

This show was great. Much better than the last time I saw them (on the washing machine tour at the barras). I wish I had gone on tuesdat as well

I hope they do sister or dirty like this. The new stuff off rather ripped sounded great as well. Only listened to the CD a few times so will have to play it again

http://living.scotsman.com:80/music.cfm?id=1334312007

Seminal bands relive their youth with classic playlists

DAVID POLLOCK
SLINT ****
ABC, GLASGOW
SONIC YOUTH *****
ABC, GLASGOW

PRESENTED by the left-field alternative festival All Tomorrow's Parties as part of its mouthwatering series of gigs performed under the Don't Look Back banner, these two very welcome shows marked the first time the series has travelled north of the Border, thanks to Glasgow promoters Synergy.
The premise of Don't Look Back is very simple: a classic band with a bit of history get together on stage and perform their finest hour in its entirety, playing their most revered album in order from start to finish. Although both Louisville post-rock founding fathers Slint and New York No Wavers turned alternative rockers Sonic Youth hold a special place in the hearts of underground music fans the world over, the real draw - and the ceaselessly creative longevity of the more famous band's career - was apparent here. Slint managed one well-attended gig, while Sonic Youth were playing the first of two sold-out shows.
It's doubly impressive, then, that Slint played what might be considered the lesser of these two gigs. Presenting their 1991 album Spiderland (the second of only two albums they made in their career), they were excellent. On pain of sounding paternal, many contemporary purveyors of what might be glibly defined as "alternative" music could do a whole lot worse than listen to them for a true definition of the term, for Slint make defiant, risk-taking, noisy music that still sounds boundary-pushing today.
The originators of the quiet-loud-quiet template of instrumental guitar music which has since been foisted on us by everyone from Mogwai to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, their music is sonorous, bleak and strangely introspective. The sound was exceptional for this show - if a little deafening in certain parts of the hall - as it really needed to be, and what little vocals there were ended up drowned out by the utterly epic, occasionally simply primal, music.
After the six lengthy tracks from Spiderland had been played, they treated the crowd to both songs from 1994's Slint EP, their final recording to date, and a long-awaited new track entitled King's Approach. Instilling a kind of fury to Krautrock's metronomic approach, it's not just a great song but an indicator of new directions to come. There was no encore, as if one were needed.
Yet however much Slint impressed, Sonic Youth felt like the main event, although their style seemed almost like pop music next to the previous night's occupants of this stage. Nonetheless, Sonic Youth are a group who weather well with age, and that's not just a reference to the youthful complexions of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, the husband and wife team at the heart of the band.
Perhaps even more so than Spiderland - certainly in terms of how widely it's recognised and how many DIY rock bands it's influenced - Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation is a seminal album, and the automatic first choice for an event like this. From the boundless power pop of the opening Teenage Riot to the grinding, dissonant closing suite of The Wonder, Hyperstation and Eliminator J, the band's performance of it was faithful, yet filled with a fiery energy that you wouldn't associate with most bands giving a repertory performance in their third decade.
Even more generous than Slint with the extra tracks at the end, Moore, Gordon, et al actually came back with two encores, which seemed like a handy way of compartmentalising the output of different eras as much as anything else. First they gave us five songs from last year's Rather Ripped album (their 14th full studio recording) including tracks that compare favourably with those classics which had gone before, such as Incinerate and Do You Believe In Rapture? Impressively, both sets of songs seemed to energise the band equally, with Gordon dancing feverishly along to Jams Run Free as she might have done during one of Daydream Nation's earliest performances.
Finally, after a note of thanks to their "Scottish brothers and sisters" (Glasgow's musical underground has always been in tune with the kind of willfully individual noise Sonic Youth make), they returned for one last song, this time the tumultuous Shaking Hell, from their first album proper Confusion Is Sex. It might be appropriate to say that both bands had provided us with a rather concise history lesson, if it wasn't about so much more than that.
This article: http://living.scotsman.com/music.cfm?id=1334312007

my highlights:
Silver Rocket
Cross the Breeze
Hey Joni
The Wonder

I enjoyed the second night more for some reason, probably was just in a better mood and closer to the stage.. took a few pics that I will upload soon..

did anyone go to the Six Organs late show after the Sonics on Tuesday? You got £2 off with an SY ticket stub so I was totally up for going but my mate wasn't so we ended up heading home.. total bummer as Elisa from Magik Markers was playing and would really have liked to have seen her, plus you just know that at least Thurston and Lee would've been hanging out..

I was there on the 21st. Really, Really good gig. I think I managed to get the best spot (in the middle of the raised section). Could just see over the main crowd and could hear everything well. I was chanting for Drunken Butterfly whenever there was a gap but no such luck.

Slint was a fantastic gig too.

I went, it was good, but would have been better if I hadn't been blown away by SY half an hour before. And yes, Thurston, Lee and Mark Ibold were there.

I thought the sound was better the second night, especially during the encore, I thought the songs with two basses sounded a little sludgy the first night. Not that it stopped it being an amazing gig though.

I saw both gigs at Strathclyde Uni in '89 and if last night wasn't quite up there with the Sunday show, it was pretty damn close. Big regret was not getting the camera out in time when Lee dangled his guitar over the audience. The feedback end to Teenage Riot was just unbelievable, even the movement if the guitars seemed perfectly choreographed. Would love to see it again and maybe we will since the show was filmed. Has that been standard at these shows?

Proper gig review and some not very good at all photos:
http://manicpopthrills.wordpress.com

I was a bit disappointed by the mixing. Slint the night before sounded perfect, but I suppose they will have been easier to mix.

Got to agree with all the above comments - I've seen Sonic Youth five times now and each time was great but this was definitely the best! The sheer enjoyment that was evident from the band & the audience response was just wonderful! I thought the gig was over after the Daydream Nation section but when they brought Mark from Pavement on and played the more recent songs it was a real bonus! Thoroughly enjoyable night all round! Lee is awesome!

Has anyone ever been to One Up Records on Belmont Street in Aberdeen - under the Sonic Youth section it says 'the best band in the world along with Pavement' and under the Pavement section it says 'the best band in the world along with Sonic Youth'!!

I know One Up, haven't been there for ages tho..

Now that I have decided to come over for the London shows after all it's nice to see they're also playing songs not from Rather Ripped in the encores... Shaking Hell and World Looks Red even, excellent.

Just back from glasgow, best sy gig ive ever been to. Sound in the abc is great, loved glasgow too, nice and sleazy is a bloody great pub. DEFO the best juke box ever. Cant wait to visit again!

best sonic youth gig i've been to. i enjoyed the barowlands one a few years back more, but i can have no qualms about their performance on wednesday and accept it for what it was - the best i've seen them. thurston set the mood nicely by coming out wearing his glasses, beer in hand, to introduce the orphan fairytale girl.

i really enjoyed her performance, especially the part where she was layering samples of her wailing. it was like an old hammer horror film or one of those early/mid 90s lovecraft video games (not even sure they had walls of wailing, but i like to remember them that way).

sonic youth were tight, welcoming and, if it were not for steve shelly incestantly drilling for oil only the way he can , it was like being invited to a special performance in their living room - log fire blazing, soft lighting and all.

wish i'd gone to tuesday night, too. would have loved to have seen shaking hell!

i hate abc, it's usually jam packed full of emo, cowlicked snobs and sequin dressed posers jiving to bad disco pop, but the youth obliterated any bad thoughts i had about the brick and mortar of the place.

the tightness of the band was superb. none of the members had anything less than an absolute stormer. the general relaxed atmosphere was fantastic, too. not what i expected at all, especially based off pervious experience. the night was less confrontational and more celebratory. there were a few arseholes elbowing everyone in sight around where we stood, but it did little to spoil the wonderful atmosphere - only dampen it slightly now and then.

steve shelly - words fail me. dave who? shelly is the best drummer i've ever had the pleasure of seeing perform live - wednesday was the best i've seen him.

thurston was, well... thurston. you're never sure if he is getting ready for a cosy night in bed or whether he has just swallowed 200 stardust. great stuff. although i think thurston may actually have aged a little since i last seen him. you've got to keep drinking that secret elixir, man!

kim was a lot more subdued than i've seen her, though she really broke out of her shell for the rather ripped section of the show onwards and was clearly enjoying herself. does anyone know what she had written on the bass she used for most of the second section of the show? my eyes were all blurry from sonic attack.

lee. that's all i need say about him. he was there, he was lee. fantastic. eric's trip was the hightlight of the show for me.

the guy who played bass with them in the second half was outstanding. gave an entirely new dimension to their performance.

loved stopping at harthill service station on the way home and seeing all the kids in their sonic youth t-shirts eating their chicken wraps at the wild bean cafe. the whole night i just felt confortable and amongst friends.

Great review of the gig, thanks :)
The Wild Bean Cafe is a favourite stop on the way home from Glasgow.
One of the kids in a SY t-shirt was my lad - we both loved the gig.

First time I'd seen the band - I saw Kim and Thurston play Stirling in 2005.

hah, that's so cool. i wish my mum went to sonic youth gigs.

your kid has dreadlocks? i remember a kid with dreadlocks with his mother. my brother went to the show the day before and looks like the kid that had dreadlocks, same t-shirt and everything - we remarked on it at the time. so if he is your kid and he wondered why two random people were going, "look, it's steven" (we may have been loud, we were both very deaf) now he knows why.

we were the ones wandering around buying all the jelly sweets, taking ages on deciding whether to get haribo fantasy mix or kids mix or golden bears or or...

never knew they played stirling in 2005 - missed that one :(

Something I noticed both nights - Lee was going CRAZY during Incinerate and grinning his head off. He must like that song..

Review in the Guardian:
http://music.guardian.co.uk/live/sto...155104,00.html

Sonic Youth

 

ABC, Glasgow

David Peschek
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian

As the 1980s drew to a close, rock music had become bloated and empty or, worse still, obsessed with a quest for authenticity, a spurious attempt epitomised by U2's gruesome Rattle and Hum, a foray into ersatz Americana. As corporate rock wheezed out a death rattle, however, a series of records from the underground reimagined what rock might be. Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, released in 1989 and now being played live in its entirety as part of the latest Don't Look Back season, came out at a time when New York's downtown art scene had been decimated by drugs and Aids, and America was groaning under a Republican presidency hostile to the arts. In the record's savage defiance endures the implicit divide between two different Americas.led into one another. They are a good deal older now - Lee Ranaldo's hair is almost totally white - but you couldn't tell from the way they bounce around the stage. As Teen Age Riot ends, Ranaldo, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon create gloriously brutal waves of feedback, rubbing their guitars over the amps, dragging them across the stage. If the Jesus and Mary Chain buried melody under beautiful noise, then Sonic Youth make beautiful melody out of noise. In some songs, they might almost be the New York Dolls. In 'Cross The Breeze, sudden shifts in pace knock the wind out of you and in Total Trash, Moore just punches the strings of his guitar with his fist. The songs' genius is in their fusion of good, old-fashioned riffing with experimental tunings and artful swathes of noise; somehow the sound is both brittle and big.


Despite Daydream Nation's brilliance, the night's most beautiful, affirming moment comes in the encore. Taking off her bass to sing lead on What a Waste from last year's Rather Ripped album, Kim Gordon whirls across the stage, dancing like a teenager, spinning around and around, arms flailing like a dervish. For some, the rock'n'roll ethos is live fast, die young. Yet survival - of productive relationships, of a vision, of a life - is much more radical. Sonic Youth, grow old, grow wise and dream on.

haha, he did that at McCarren too