http://www.newsday.com/entertainment...ny-music-print
Yeah, Sonic Youth has a worthy successor
BY RAFER GUZMÁN
Newsday Staff Writer
August 14, 2006
For more than two decades, the iconic punk band Sonic Youth has remained the standard-bearer of a distinctly New York City sound: raw, noisy, uncompromising. But if any band has emerged in recent years as Sonic Youth's heir apparent, it's Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Friday's concert might have marked the moment the torch was passed. The appropriately rough-edged setting was the McCarren Park Pool, now crudely converted into a live venue, near the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. With several thousand indie-rockers as witnesses, Sonic Youth played a strong one-hour set, then yielded the stage to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who delivered a jaw-dropping, triumphant performance. (The bands planned to switch places Saturday night.)
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None of this means Sonic Youth is on its way out. In fact, its latest album, "Rather Ripped" (Geffen), is one of the year's best rock records, transforming the group's trademark brand of pure noise into hard-rocking riffs and powerful hooks. On Friday, Sonic Youth played eight tracks from "Rather Ripped," including the locomotive "Incinerate" and a surprisingly emotional ballad called "Do You Believe in Rapture?"
The core quartet - guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, bassist Kim Gordon (all three trade vocals) and drummer Steve Shelley - performed less like a band and more like a single cell, moving and morphing organically. Serving as an additional bassist was Mark Ibold, whose own influential band, Pavement, owed more than a small debt to Sonic Youth.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sonic Youth share more than a gritty aesthetic: They're also frustratingly hit-and-miss. Yeah Yeah Yeahs' drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner are usually dependable, but singer Karen O likes to be the wild card. She may be a frightening hellion one moment, a lovable kook the next. During a single song, she might change personalities multiple times, leaving the impression that she's forgotten what she set out to do in the first place.
That didn't happen Friday. Instead the three musicians, aided by an additional guitarist-keyboardist, played with an intensity and focus uncommon in any band. Chase took full control of his kit (his booming kick-drum was relentless) while Zinner sounded like a multi-guitar orchestra, scratching out powerful riffs over his own loops. But it was Karen O who galvanized the band, and the audience.
She soaked up the essence of each song - whether a glowering number such as "Rich" or the heartbreaking "Maps" - and radiated it toward a clearly enthralled crowd. Even the somewhat fuzzy tunes from the band's latest album, "Show Your Bones" (Interscope), became riveting: "Cheated Hearts" began with Who-style power-chords and steadily evolved into a full-blown rock anthem.
By the time the show ended, with a galloping version of "Date with the Night," few fans could deny they'd just seen something remarkable. Zinner strolled off stage, Chase took a deep bow and Karen O screamed, "Yeah!"
SONIC YOUTH AND YEAH YEAH YEAHS. Two of New York's best bands put on one of the year's best concerts. Friday and Saturday at McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn. Seen Friday.