Sonic Youth Gossip - Osaka Setlist

The Vooredoms ruled. It's funny--I've got a fair number of Boredoms albums, including some of the really recent "Vooredoms" (mostly drum-oriented) stuff, and they didn't play anything I recognized, although the overall tribal style definitely sounds like their recent albums. No matter--they were mezmerizing, easily as good as SY was. The audience went nuts for them--it's a hometown crowd, and there were obviously a fair number of people there primarily to see them. I found myself pretty much spontanously going nuts in the pit myself, which is a good sign. They play amazingly dynamic, bizarre music. Eye, their frontman, spent a fair amount of the show banging on guitars with a big club, but somehow it managed to be musical and fit the highly refined mayhem perfectly. Yoshimi alternated between drums and keyboards, and ATR (one of the other drummers) played some kind of zylophone.

When Sonic Youth were setting up, someone who looked a lot like Jim O'Rourke was doing a DJ set... I'm not too sure what Jim looks like, but I THINK it was him. I wonder if I was just tripping...

Sonic Youth: this is only my 3rd time to see them. I saw them on the Daydream Nation tour, playing the whole album live, and then opening for Neil Young in I think 1991. I've loved them for years, but have spent a lot of time living in places (Taiwan, Thailand) where they never play. So, anyway, it was a great blast from the past.

I was really surprised by how similar they look to the old days--Lee is almost totally grey now, but otherwise looks GREAT, and Steve has jowls, but otherwise they look like the same 4 characters they always were.

Started out a bit shaky-sounding, with the vocals too low and the twin-basses sounding a bit weird and overbearing, but it was still great to hear Candle. Incinerate sounded stronger, with the mix getting tighter. Reena was nice, except for Kim was having trouble with her vocals. Interesting to see her dance around. It was great to hear "Bull in the Heather," and everything sounded good except for Kim's vocals on the chorus.

On Eric's trip, they fully had everything together on one of my favorite SY songs--tight and powerful, and Lee's vocals were perfect. This is when I really started having fun and going nuts. I really like "Rather Ripped," but "What a Waste" hasn't been one of my favorite songs off of it. Nevertheless, live it was really excellent, with Kim sounding great, spooky dancing, and lots of ominous guitar effects to boot. At this point, I got in the Lee zone, so I could watch him do his wizardry, and stayed there for most of the rest of the show, except for occasional trips to the mosh pit to go nuts and also farther back when really hear the vocals well.

Next up was "World Looks Red," the first time I've ever heard it live, and they stepped up the intensity another notch with this one. It ended with the first really extended guitar freakout of the night, with the old "attacking guitar with drumssticks" trick, and then transitioned really beautifully to "Do You Believe in Rapture"--a wonderful combination of the very old and very new.

"Turquoise Boy" was also pretty trippy and delicate, with a very nice transition between the mellow vocal sections and the intense instrumental break in the middle. Kim sounded great on this one too--the vocal problems that she had on the first couple of songs were totally gone. The audience was really whooping it up, and Thurston said something like "for being such a great audience, we're going to play 'Rats' for you!" No complaints here--one of my very favorite new tunes, and a chance to hear Lee sing again. Fairly different from the album version--fairly disorienting-sounding, in a great way. Thurston on bass on this one, with Mark Ibold (?) and Kim both on guitars.

The set proper closed with Jams Run Free and a long version of "Pink Steam," the first beautiful, and the second with lots of great guitar interplay. They left the stage and we got them back pretty quickly for the first encore. "Silver Rocket" was one of the best songs of the night, and I went nuts in the pit... think I'm getting too old for this, but it was easy to do for this song. Like a lot of Japanese audiences, this was very happy and positive—lots of rowdiness, but no violence. They followed with "Lights Out," which a good closer... another one of those very nice melodic "Rather Ripped" songs.

The second encore was just about perfect, I think. They came out without Mark Ibold, and I was pretty intrigued to see Lee bringing out an acoustic guitar. I totally loved "Or" live--a lot of it was just Steve and Lee, with a kind of slow tribal beat, and Lee doing those raga-rock runs on his acoustic guitar. All in all, the new material comes across great live. Then, Thurston played bass again on "Shaking Hell," which was a great, chaotic way to end the evening, with Kim screaming and the rowdier part of the audience screaming back.

Yeah, it would have been cool to hear a few more oldies, but the new material was so good that I didn't mind. Confusion is Sex, Daydream Nation and Experimental/Jet Set are three of my favorite albums by them, so it was nice that the oldies were all from those albums. I would have liked to hear something from Murray Street, another 90's tune (never got a chance to hear their 90's stuff live, except for the Goo material), and another Lee tune or two, but I'm not complaining one bit about hearing most of Rather Ripped live, because it's already becoming one of my favorite albums by them. Heck, when I saw them play Daydream Nation live, the only oldie was "I Love Her All the Time," if I remember right. They don't exactly live in the past, do they?

Anyway, it's wonderful to see a 25-year old band that still fully has it!