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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - When Sonic Youth began its encore Thursday at the Wiltern LG with the eloquent, longish "Turquoise Boy," it was the set's sixth consecutive song from the band's new album. And the fans who had been yelling for oldies all night were practically begging.
Some audibly groused. Others split. But all was made right with the opening chimes of "Teen Age Riot," from the landmark 1988 album "Daydream Nation." The onstage ruckus devolved into precision chaos as Lee Ranaldo ran a bow across his guitar during a four-piece feedback fest that ended with Ranaldo and Thurston Moore crossing their guitars overhead and mashing the strings together.
It was the showiest display -- aside from Kim Gordon's uninhibited free-form dancing -- of a 95-minute set that saw the New York postpunk faves focused squarely on the present. The band played all but one of the dozen songs on its three-month-old album "Rather Ripped" (Geffen). And while those who only came to hear nuggets from Sonic Youth's 25-year career might have been mildly miffed, anyone who actually listened to the new material had to admit one thing: It's good.
The band is back down to a quartet with the departure of Jim O'Rourke after two albums. With the classic lineup of Moore, Ranaldo, Gordon and drummer Steve Shelley intact (augmented by Pavement bassist Mark Ibold on the tour), Sonic Youth has produced a gem of a 15th album. Among the high points of the record and show were the skewed tunefulness of "Incinerate" with its harsh imagery ("You doused my soul with gasoline/You flicked a match into my brain") and "What a Waste," a Gordon-sung bounce-along that evoked the Noo Yawk sound of "Dreaming"-era Blondie.
And the new ones kept comin': "Jams Run Free" was spiked with mini-riffs and a breathy Gordon vocal; "Pink Steam" rose from an almost swampy opening to a long instrumental bang; "The Neutral" had a tweaked sweetness; and the hypnotic, dirge-paced "Or" featured Ranaldo tossing in "The End"-like guitar fills.
But amid all the frequent guitar changes and onstage tunings, one new song stood out most. Moore's near-yelping, half-cracking vocal lent a discomforting immediacy to "Do You Believe in the Rapture?" The performance built from an appropriate doomsday intro to a ticking-clock guitar recessional. If this is any indication, the rapture will be beautiful.
The catalog-starved fans did get a few chances to cheer, with the Ranaldo-fronted "Eric's Trip," the shrieking show-closer "Shaking Hell" and a couple others, but this night was about now. And now, as then, Sonic Youth is a live beast. And it showed no hint of laurel-resting.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter