Online Reviews of Lincoln Ctr Gig 11/21/97 Subject: AVeryFisher REview it's pretty long. I went, it was amazing. Anyway, Averyfisher is a beautiful opulent place to see a gig. After it, there was no other place I would have liked to been, except maybe the Cooler or the knittingfactory. I was like 5 feet from the stage, in row d, dead center. The crowd fit my recent cateogorizations of them. A lot of Nirvana tshirts in the audience, etc. Also a lot of the kids my age, (I'm 16) just acted stupid in my opinion. I also don't see how they would really like the yooth. I mean half the kids at the show, looked really really "weird", or just un normal. There's nothing wrong with looking weird, but all the Sonic yoth members are just NORMAL people. I've talked to Thurston enough times, and he's really low key and pretty mellow. A bunch of kids, who snuck into the vacant first row for the SY set, got kicked out of the section right in the middle of the first song, cause the real seat owners came. Now to the music. Tom Verlaine (from the television) and Jimmy Rip were amazing. It was beautifual, gtr instruemntal experimentation. It was great mood, music and just set the tone for the entire evening. A bunch of morons were yelling during it, and were like "keep on rockin" very sarcastically, that pissed me off, but I tried to ignore it. It took about 15 minutes for them to clear the stage, and the lights went down and it was time to go. Lee, Kim and Steve came out together, Thurston a minute later, running out, it turns out, he did a lot of running that night. Anyway they opened with a new instrumental called Karen Koltrane, which I think will be on the new album, (don't hold me to it). It had a nice cool catchy riff, that went aroudnd for a while. Kim played guitar on all the songs except for two. Once that song ended, Thurston started making gtr noises, which was nice. They had given out a program which a set list in it, and the next song said proud marie. There was no Slaapkamers, so I thought I was gonna be bummed out, anyway Proud Marie is Slaapkammers!! I got totally hyped when Thurston broke into the main riff, da da duh da dada. The song was great, its much better live than on the ep, I've seen it three times played. You couldn't hear Steve's drums all that well, which was a shame. Thurston broke one of his strings during it, continued to bash around for awhile and then ran over to the side of the stage to get a different guitar. They were really intent on finishing the song off well and Thurston shouted 1,2,3,4 right before they went into the main riff. After that they played Anagrama which was great, a lovely tune to hear. They then played WildFlower, one of the best intrumentals of date, and I loved it. My heart was pounding and I had a huge smile on my face. They then played 3 new instrumentals, which were all good. One in particular, had these massive Noise Bridges where they would just be all going insane on gtrs. Hits of (Gay) Sunshine, was great, Thurston's vocals were to low, so I couldn't hear him quickly. I'm probably one of the few people who have the words to that memorized now. Static Overview was another insturmental. They then played a new song sung by Kim called Heather Angel, which was good. It started out in semi typical Kim fashion, a la bull in the heather, vocally., then it went into this experimental part, where she was doing more of a freestyle thing, while Thurston was playing gtr with a metal hammer and Lee experimenting as well. It then suddently picked up into this really really fast thing, and she was spitting out the vocals which was great. That ended the set, they played a rousing encore.Of Sunday, the one lyric sung by Thurston "a perfect ending to a perfect day" summed up the day for me. A fantastic night, the crowd pissed me off a bit, but I won't let that bother me. If you read all the way through, damn, you've got nothing to do, but then again, so do I, cause I wrote it:) Matt SETLIST: Karen Koltrane Proud Marie Anagrama Wildflower Woodland Ode Hush French Tickler Hits Of Sunshine Static OverView Heather Angel Sunday Subject: Re: AVeryFisher REview The music grabbed me. it was more than art. It was pure expression. I was deeply moved. Captivated throughout the entire set. Kim' vocals in Heather Angel were the best I've ever heard in A sonic youth song. The only problem I had were the blck turtleneck sophistos trying to act hip by seeing SY. I was there years ago when they were listening to VH1 and now they'll be looking down on me for not being as sophisticated as they are. FUCK THEM. Proud Marie (Slaapkamers) was amazing. Hell, all the songs totally blew me away. The best show I've ever seen in my life. Most people seem to say Sonic peaked in the 1988 with Daydream but last nights show disproves that notion entirely. I don't think we've even come close to seeing the peak of Sonic Youth. All I have to say is screw DGC. They should just release the SYR type stuff. A full album of it would be great but DGC would complain. When I saw the setlist I was kind of upset that Silver Rocket or Expressway were'nt there but once they began playing I realized that that show was something far bigger than anything they've previously done and that playing old "hits" would lessen the magnitude of importance that happened last night. A new era has started in music. I'm not talking a new era in rock music. The course of all music from now on will be influenced by what is happening and the cornerstone of what is happening is what I saw Friday night at the Avery Fisher in NYC. everyone grab the instrument of your choice and play music. Beautiful music that adheres to no rules or discipline. Bring the aesthetic back into music and Kill Yr Idols. ---the holy melted one Subject: Re: AVeryFisher REview I was there, it was so cool. I got a seat all the way in the back, which sucked, but for the last last song after, me and a friend ran to the front of the stage, and saw sonic youth *really* close up. Then they left, and the lights flickered for a second. Everyone thought SY was going to come back out, but then everyone left, except us. Thurston came back out on stage and sang "Hey, where you going? In such a hurry?", and later we all were hanging out, sonic youth and us, and we all had an orgy in thurstons blood. KILL YR IDOLS!!!