Sonic Youth played at Barcelona's Primavera Sound festival last Saturday the 2nd of June. As part of the ATP's Don't look back series, Sonic Youth performed Daydream Nation, their 1988 album. Possibly their most revealing work, one of the most important music album of the last 20 years.
The beginning of a personal cult
I discovered Sonic Youth in the end of 1989, my high school mate Giorgio used to wear a Sonic Youth t-shirt, it could have been the Sonic Youth album cover but since then a lot of Sonic Youth t-shirts have passed and my memory's fading, and thanks to him I was sucked in the sonic vortex.
Torino, Italy the 25th of September 1990
The first Sonic Youth concert I saw, at The Big Club in Turin. A few memories of the show, but since then almost 30 Sonic Youth's gig have passed. Again in Turin, as well as in Milan. A one night return drive to Lyon, France and a one day return drive to Nancy, France. A two day/one night out to see the guys in Paris at the Elysée Montmartre, a three day stop in Paris to see them at the Olympia. In Amsterdam and in Barcelona.
Primavera Sound 2007
I guess every Sonic Youth fan dream is see them performing Daydream Nation; how many how you attended the original 1989 Daydream Nation tour? I did not. This 2007 version of the Daydream Nation tour is obviously another story, 20 years are passed and the album's heritage is not a light weight to bear. Twenty years are passed and the Sonic Youth are just entering their 20s as Thurston Moore said during the band show at this year Primavera Sound Festival.
A concert is not just a band on a stage
A concert experience is made up of the band performing, the light and the hardware, and the audience. That said, I'm afraid Barcelona is not the best place on earth to attend a gig. And this is more true for a Major League band as the Sonic Youth. Also summer festival inherently present a generally dispersed audience in terms of musical and live musical events experience.
While the audience passed the test with a nothing to complain about, the technicians messed up with something, after more than 30 minutes working behind Lee Ranaldo's part of the stage, eventually Ranaldo will encounter some issue while performing Rain King. The performance was recordedon video, I don't know if it was an ATP production, a Sonic Youth one or a Primavera Sound feature; fact is even if a flying cable camera was there, someone had nothing better to think of than putting a camera, and its relevant camera guy, on a iron platform just in front of Thurston Moore. These are the things you are supposed not to do if you pretend to organize an international music festival.
Sonic Youth at Primavera Sound, the songs list
Sonic Youth performed Daydream Nation as programmed. The whole album following the original track sequence:
Disc One - Side One
- Teen Age Riot
- Silver Rocket
- The Sprawl
Disc One - Side Two
- 'Cross The Breeze
- Eric's Trip
- Total Trash
Disc Two- Side One
- Hey Joni
- Providence
- Candle
- Rain King
Disc Two- Side Two
- Kissability
- Trilogy
- The Wonder
- Hyperstation
- Eliminator Jr.
Every Sonic Youth performance has a story to tell
Every Sonic Youth's performance is an open book anyone's following the band for quite a while. You can then remember the pre-Nirvana/Grunge era performances, and the early 1980s ones if you really are such an hard core Sonic friend, or think at the after-Nirvana ones. Maybe you're thinking of the period just after Kim & Thurston child birth, or going back to that tour when the two looked about to split.
You attended early 1990s shows when the band used to tour with the Pavement, you survived the Jim O'Rourke period; if you followed the guys down with their minimalistic experimental SYR records studios you probably gained a land of rest somewhere in the noise heaven. If you kept your ears stuck to the car stereo, parked along a street road at night, listening to a Sonic Youth live show transmitted from Paris, or listened to Thurston Moore giving the France football team results to the Parisian audience. Buying mixed cassette tapes on eBay to find some obscure recording, collecting every single bootleg you can find. If you experienced just a small amount of all of the above, then you know how to read a Sonic Youth show.
Twenty years of Daydream Nation, 20 years of Sonic Youth
After 20 years Daydream Nation's sonic storm is still there to hit the scene, fresh, raw, furious, and straight. You can listen at the tracks as it's still 1989, everywhere is New York, and we are all new yorkers. An album that won't lose anything because of the passing of time, think of Light my fire or Smells like teen spirit, the difference being this is a whole album.
The band has changed
The band has changed during the years, from Glenn Branca and Richard Edson, from Bob Bert to Steve Shelley, the Jim O'Rourke era to the Mark Ibold touring cameo. The main thing I noticed was the distinctive band tuning when playing sonic thunders, the Sonic Youth watermark that sound impossibly the same recorded or live, is no longer something to stress about to prove something. There's no need anymore; now the guys have in some ways understood there's no need to play defense. For the first time in my SY live show career I saw the band missing that coordination, the peculiarity of the Daydream Nation revisitation tour could be an excuse, at some point Thurston started with his guitar piece and Kim had to approach him, and Lee and Steve where actually laughing, to ask him what was he doing. We are talking Sonic Youth here, and this is one of those things that make a live music show worth see.
Steve Shelley
Steve Shelley, possibly the only drummer in the music whose mission is to predict and follow the pace set by the two guitars. Never a hint of teen age rebellion, Steve Shelley is now the established and wise strategist that knows how to impose the rhythm in such an atypical band architecture.
Like being on the stage and knowing you can always count on the guy behind you, now it's not only punk response the front guys are asking when approaching Mr. Shelley; now they look for a scout to send out in the sonic fields, collect data and get back to set the path. Mr. Steve Shelley, drummer, Sonic Youth.
Lee Ranaldo
Lee Ranaldo is your punk with a tie, the guy experimenting with the stick in the guitar in your backyard at night. If it would be possible to take a picture shot of moving sound, Ranaldo's guitar would be a a Citizane Kane has directed by William S. Burroughs.
More and more Ranaldo looks like Burroughs alter ego, Lee, playing his guitar under fans windows somewhere in the Interzone. You never knew Lee, you'll never know Lee. Mr. Lee Ranaldo, guitars, vocals, Sonic Youth.
Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon was born a lady, her lovely schizophrenic arty teen attacks where the performance of the first lady in a Shakespearean company. Always on the line of a blade, between a punk queen and a post-modern idoru, she's now free to play with the labels.
To see her doing the magical sonic wheel dance is like being in a far away future, a tavern outer space where girls are dancing and fluo-colored long drinks are served by shining robots. Everybody's speaking Chinese 2.0 and you are to stoned to look for help. Ms. Kim Gordon, bass guitar, vocals, Sonic Youth.
Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore always sounded like the about to explode variable in the Sonic Youth equation. A Ramones white fly in the sonic desert, you knew the guy was there to dive deep into the line and screw the sound wave.
The strange tall guy that fall in love with the misterious queen from the north looks like a noise version of Bill Gates: glasses on he twitches with the electronic kit his friends bring along. Putting on the answering machine tape to let Mike Watt's glorious Providence call play is the the best thing you can do on a Saturday night.
The full photo set of the Sonic Youth live show at Primavera Sound is available as a slide show on Flickr.
Post new comment