Any word on the Dinosaur Jr. reunion shows?

http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=6565

Sound was terrible (WAY too loud and muddy), they played well but it was all early stuff, and as a bit of a fairweather, post-'Green Mind' fan I found it a bit, well, dull. But my friend who loves all their early stuff saw them on the second night and loved them.

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/5255/dinojr11ol.th.jpg http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/194/dinojr25lv.th.jpg http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/4813/dinojr39kv.th.jpg

Yes, they covered "Just Like Heaven." And Murph wasn't wearing a shirt, yet still had sweat pouring from his polished dome.

More photos to come.

By Steve Appleford, Special to The Times

Can an old punk-rock band be better than you remembered?

The original brooding trio of Dinosaur Jr didn't survive beyond the '80s, yet still managed to influence much of the coming indie/grunge explosion. Onstage Wednesday at the Avalon, Dinosaur Jr resurrected itself maybe better than ever, igniting spasms of melody and noise that were surprisingly fresh and jarring.

Rocking out is good for them. By the '90s, singer-bassist Lou Barlow had been forced out, and he and singer-guitarist J Mascis drifted into works of understated folk gloom. But Dinosaur Jr's 70-minute set focused entirely on the band's high-decibel '80s work, beginning with Barlow's "Gargoyle," a song from the band's 1985 debut album.

Barlow warned fans that Mascis had a cold from traveling on airplanes over the past two weeks. But it didn't seem to slow Mascis at all, with guitar soloing that was the main attraction and musical exclamation point, an unlikely fusion of Sonic Youth and the Allman Brothers.

Barlow and Mascis enjoyed legit careers and followings in and out of Dinosaur Jr, but on Wednesday they were clearly better off as a team (along with original drummer Murph). The result was direct and passionate at the Avalon in a way the albums never quite managed, from the Sabbath worship of "Sludgefeast" to a roughed-up cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" that was louder and mopier than the pop original.

Support act Modey Lemon arrived from Pittsburgh as a fitting appetizer, rocking an intense racket of indie rock, building a wall of sound that was like the MC5 without the guitar solos.

Gargoyle
No Bones
Kracked
Lose
Bulbs of Passio
Wagon
Forget the SWA
Budge
Lung
Freakscene
Raisins
Sludgefeast
---[Encore]
Heaven
In a Jar
---[Second Encore]
Chunks
Quest
Does it Flow
Freeform Jam

Tiny DIG at TIM ELLISONS FAVORITE SST BAND!

Well, it's 2012 and last night they played a lesser street festival in Chicago for a suggested $5 donation. It was crammed with people, but many of them didn't seem to know what to expect. (That's being generous). I was one of maybe three people in my general vicinity who knew all the songs (actually there were maybe 2 songs I didn't immediately recognize but w/e). The show itself was pretty great -- started with a super jammed out version of Thumb and played almost all my favorites. Even the stuff from Without a Sound sounded pretty good (Out There in particular) but I can live without ever hearing "Feel the Pain" again.

Overall, dignity in tact 7 years after reunion.

ah so they're now playing songs from the '90s records when Lou wasn't in the band? that's cool, i wonder when that started.

Yeah -- there was a lot of that, surprisingly. They played The Wagon too.

I just realized that I completely confused Where You Been with Without a Sound -- I guess I conflated them. Feel the Pain was Without a Sound; Out There was Where You Been. I liked Where You Been better iirc.

Anyway, I only brought it up to say that the songs sounded better to me now than they did then.