Sonic Youth
with The Nihilist Spasm Band
Thurs. Aug. 15, 2001 @ Kool Haus, Toronto

Well it’s not every day that you get a chance to see a legendary band like Sonic Youth, and I was pretty pumped up for this show. I am ashamed to admit that this was only my first time seeing Sonic Youth perform live, mainly because I haven’t been keeping up with all of their latest albums. This year, with the release of Murray Street, my interest in Sonic Youth was piqued once again and I decided that I had better catch them live sometime soon before they get old and retire. Not that I could actually imagine a day when Sonic Youth will not be writing and performing music in some shape or form. Their career thus far has been nothing if not prolific. They’ve been together since 1981, and Murray Street marks their 16th full length release if I’m not mistaken. Damn that is a lot of material to try and cover in a live performance.

The opening band was a noise band from London, Ontario called The Nihilist Spasm Band, and I gotta say, nothing could have prepared me for their performance. First of all, the band is comprised of 6 or 7 guys who look to be quite old, and they took the stage wearing matching red t-shirts with a symbol of a musical note crossed out on them. It seemed odd that the members of a noise band would be balding or have grey hair and big beards, and it seemed even stranger when the vocalist informed the audience that they had been doing this for 35 years. Now that’s dedication.

They used quite an interesting assortment of instruments to construct their layers of noise. There was the standard stuff like guitar, bass and drums, and then there was some weird stuff like a kazoo, a thumb piano, a waterpipe, and a cooking pot, believe it or not. The singer would start off each song with a short poetry piece that was just hilarious. The first song was called “What About Me” and in a loud, booming voice he shouted something like “You think the economy is bad? What about me? You think the CN tower is the largest free standing structure? What about me?”. Other songs included “Meat Eater” and “My Way”, during which he declared “Do things my way, the only way! I care about what you think, it’s just that it’s wrong!” Then he proceeded to make strange low pitched moans and wails with his voice as his bandmates slowly built up a racket around him.

Their set was made up of 5 songs in all… or maybe it was 6. Either way, it was just about right. Not surprisingly, the crowd totally ate it up. At any other concert they would have been booed off the stage, but opening for Sonic Youth they were worshipped as gods.

Speaking of gods, Sonic Youth walked on stage soon afterwards to an overwhelming roar from the packed “Haus”, and it became clear that they too were adored by the crowd. It also became clear that the crowd was quite fond of the new album, which is a good thing, because they played every single song from it! Of course, Murray Street only has 7 tracks on it, so I suppose that’s not quite as big deal as it sounds.

They also had Jim O’Rourke with them on stage, providing the essential third layer of guitar noise. I am guessing that he is now an official member of the band and not just an occasional collaborator.

Their stage set up included a screen onstage behind the band that projected live black and white camera images of the crowd, and at times some abstract-looking still images. They also had a lot of bright lights and a strobe light that was used effectively during certain songs.

The most fun part of watching Sonic Youth play was just seeing how tight they were together. Even though their songs often have parts where they improvise and jam out, they still seem to instinctively know where the song is going. I guess that’s what you get when you play music together for over 20 years.

Aside from the wealth of new material, the selection of songs included a couple of tunes from the Daydream Nation album, including Eric’s Trip (which is where the Halifax band took their name from), and a couple songs from the Evol album, including the delicate Shadow Of A Doubt with a satisfyingly chaotic climax.

As it turns out, the main highlights in my mind were actually performances of a couple new songs: Rain On Tin with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo’s interwoven guitar parts, as well as Karen Revisited and its extended noise jam finale.

My only complaint as the show drew to a close was that they hadn’t played any songs from Dirty or Goo (although they were the band’s most commercially successful albums, they are also my favourites). I was beginning to wonder if it had anything to do with the theft of their gear that happened on tour a couple years ago. It has been said that some of that equipment was irreplacable, and that many of their songs could never be reproduced using other instruments instead. But then, as if on cue, the band ended their encore with one of my all-time favourite Sonic Youth songs, Drunken Butterfly, with Kim Gordon dancing around on stage and singing. They also did a second encore featuring an early song from the Confusion Is Sex album called Making The Nature Scene. I guess that makes at least one satisfied customer on the night. — Sean