Sonic Youth/Wolf Eyes/Jackie O Motherfucker at the Showbox in Seattle 7/14/04 : concert review

Sonic Youth kicked off their first US date for their Summer 2004 tour a few hours ago (Ed.: a few days ago now.. review was written just after coming back from the show) (first actual date being in Vancouver on Tuesday), and i'm still ecstatic..(no pun intended...)

Jackie O Motherfucker opened, and I want those really long 30 minutes of my life back. I guess in the same way that many bad mega-jam rock bands erupted out of inspiration from the otherwise excellent Led Zeppelin, there's a smaller generation of bad avant garde noise bands erupting out of inspiration of the, um, seclusion of Jandek, and Jackie O are perhaps one of them? Anyway, there was no sense of engagement nor grasp of presence during their set. Either they just really didn't try, or they tried extremely hard to NOT try and succeeded.... in making an indulgent boring ruckus.

Wolf Eyes thankfully flipped things around 180 and turned their assault of jurassic, guttural tuneless noise into a joyous time, despite the lack of any discernable treble or low bass. Overall, they produced a disguised pulse of mid-to-low frequency rage noise and absolutely raged on stage, and had thee fucking time of their lives doing it... which was enough to connect with the audience and make a good chunk of the audience enjoy it too, including myself. I'm not won over by them in the sense of wanting to buy their music, but I'm certainly excited to see them live the next time they come around...(although I'd imagine and hope they'd change or tweak their live show antics in the future, as the same thing year after year would get a bit.. um.. trying)

I hadn't seen Sonic Youth since the legendary This Ain't No Picnic headline performance in Orange County, CA in 1999, which was fantastic, although the performance was the result of one of the Youth's most horrific points in their lives... their entire arsenal of gear being stolen. So not only was this my first time seeing Sonic Youth with O' Rourke in the live lineup, but also my first time since that event and 9/11... so there's a lot of live history and cornerstones in the band's career that I missed in between. That said, Sonic Youth's set was certainly some return to form as far as live energy goes. I don't exactly buy the whole comparison of Sonic Nurse to the glory days of Evol, Sister, or Daydream Nation at all; nor is it as immediate as Murray Street. However, I think Sonic Nurse is a fine record. It's a very sparse and somewhat slower tempo record that slowly seeps in after five or six listens, but there is a sense that the band feels they've reached a pleasant plateau with this new one. That said, the live versions of the Sonic Nurse songs were completely awash with more layers and amplified live, so anyone who enjoys the latest album by SY should ABSOLUTELY go see them on this tour and here the new louder, recontextualized versions of the Sonic Nurse songs -- which actually lend slightly more credence to Nurse being a return to the glory days, so to speak. Of course, they pulled out a few great true oldies in the set as well. I won't give away the oldies they did, during the main set nor the two encores, but this is the most re-energized Sonic Youth set I've seen in a long time. I've never seen Kim Gordon seem so free during a Sonic Youth show until just now. (My first Sonic Youth show was in 1990 for the Goo tour, when they played U.C. Irvine) And I have never seen a man more happy than Lee tonight. He was just smiling the entire time, and never stopped smiling. The band were all having the greatest time of their lives (and said many gracious things about Seattle, moreso than I seen any other touring band do in a long time.) Subsequently, I have to thank the band for making their good time my good time.

Youth fans should not miss this tour.