Oh shit k-krack. How have you been man?

k-krack, living on the opposite side of Canada I can relate with you. Most of the SY shows I've seen involved a fair deal of travelling, if I was content with seeing them whenever they visited my province I'd be fondly remembering the two times I saw them in the past 15 years. I do feel like the answer is not to play less new material, but to play a longer set with a few extra old songs, in addition to all of the new material.

That said, set lists are always going to be a cause of much discussion and outrage, no matter what they play, for a band with such a vast back catalog. Ten years ago I felt very strongly like many people on this board do, now I'm almost indifferent. I just know that if I saw a show directly after the release of their brand new album and they only played 3 or 4 new songs in the entire set (which many bands do! hell, even notorious anti-fan set list constructor Neil Young barely plays any new material in support of his latest releases these days) I would be very disappointed.

I think their method of trying a lot of different songs from their main album in the encores is very smart... It seems to give them a chance to throw a lot of weight behind songs that have also been played as part of the main set... where undoubtedly they still play them full-on, but the context is very different. For example I would like to hear how this recent Anti Orgasm sounded where it was in the encore. :) At least over the radio stream, Antenna in D.C. night 2 was supremely good in the encore, to have it start with lee doing that piercing, sweeping sound!

I actually disagree a bit. As much as I like when bands change their set lists a lot, Sonic Youth always used to have pretty cool standard set openers/closers + encore openers for many tours. "Shoot" as an opener in '92, "JC" as the first song of the encore -- what could be more awesome? Even if it became predictable, that's still deadly. "Sympathy for the Strawberry" as a closer of most of the '02 sets, with 'Disconnection Notice' as the first song of the encore. Closing the sets with 'NYC Ghosts' and then opening the encore with 'Lightnin' was cruel, but hilarious. In '98 they'd close w/ 'Heather Angel' then open the encore with 'Stil' (fucking awesome, again). These are all gambles to some degree, because an encore is surely when you expect to hear a 'classic', but the ones I've listed here (and others) were all pretty much played like clockwork. While it may seem like a drag to have these kind of predictable entries in every set if you're following them on tour, most people only see one or two shows, so there's a lot to be said for there being a static structure to a tour's set list, if that's what the band wants to do.

Well that was a long convoluted way to get to a point I'm not even sure I can make... the example you gave, where the encores actually aren't set in stone, has less of an impact for me (as an admirer of set list design, not necessarily as a fan attending multiple shows). If there's no one song from the new record that can serve as a great encore opener, then it's better off to just get the new material out of the way in the primary set and save the encore for classics. Otherwise, how exciting is an encore that starts with "Lights Out" or "Thunderclap"? If I weren't a huge fan, and they opened an encore with a throwaway like either of those, particularly after the main set was full of new material, I'd probably be offended! (Of course, identifying those two songs as throwaways is my personal opinion and others may be delighted to hear those songs in an encore, which is why I almost didn't bother typing any of this. And I still maintain that 'Lightnin' made an incredible encore, and was always disappointed when they wussed out and did something like 'Kool Thing' instead. Oh, same with when they'd stick 'Kool Thing' in after 'Strawberry' to end the main sets in '02, what the fuck? You just play the most devastating 10 minute epic and choose not to rest on that?)

"I Love You Golden Blue" is another example -- here they had an absolutely perfect opener, and it always perplexed me anytime they wouldn't open with it on that tour.

Anybody have a setlist report from Knoxville last night (July 10th) ?

MarleyPumpkin, SY37 ?

I actually didn't like Golden Blue as an opener because it's one of the few tracks that is far superior studio vs live. I have to agree with you though that "lightnin" was incredible. That was a part of the encore of one of the top two shows I've seen. I loved when Thurston hit that chord. Wow! "Strawberry" was also a great closer! Agreed!

I could see that being a really, really good opener, especially since they're going about it like that.

Also, I completely agree with you, SFP on the placement of that song on the album.

Knoxville Set...

I don't remember the order that they played the songs, but they played all of the Eternal songs except for Thunderclap and also Tom Violence, Shadow of a Doubt (YES!!!), Pink Steam, White Kross, The Sprawl, and ended the show with the best freaking Cross The Breeze ever.

"Golden Blue" was still quite great, but so far as 21st-century Kim epics go,
it never sounded as good as "Strawberry" did live, or "Massage the History",
which has sounded fantastic at every show I've seen so far.

I thought the coming out one at a time was a little bit corny, too. It reminded me of Alice in Chains Unplugged.

(Going to listen to Strawberry)

Sonic Youth
Bijou Theatre
Knoxville, TN
July 10th, 2009


1.Tom Violence
2.Sacred Trickster
3.No Way
4.Calming the Snake
5.Poison Arrow
6.Shadow of a Doubt
7.Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)
8.Antenna
9.Anti-Orgasm
10.Malibu Gas Station
11.What We Know
12.Massage the History
13.White Kross
14.<encore 1>
15.Walkin Blue
16.Pink Steam
17.<encore 2>
18.The Sprawl
19.Cross The Breeze

I should have the recording posted on Dime or etree sometime soon.

nashville,

opened with sacred trickster, played all of eternal except for thunderclap, shadow of a doubt, the spawl, silver rocker, PCH, closed with DV69

Yes indeedy you can add White Kross to that.

It was a great, crankin' show !!!

Also, they soundchecked with Stereo Sanctity and Sacred Trickster.

WHAT?

Whoa.

Don't do that to us!

If you lyin', you fryin'. Also cryin'.

Yeah, they played Stereo Sanctity about 5 times during soundcheck, no joke.

I am not lying heh. They played it once with just Thurston and Steve, and then they played like snippets of it, and they did a full band one once or twice. They shut the doors however and I couldn't see the full band, but I heard it. I was pretty suprised also.