Will Mike Watt perform 'Providence' w/SY in LA?
 

Provided Watt isn't on tour somewhere else in July, it could happen.

But Mike Watt has nothing to do with that song's live performance, just the answering machine.

Why does everyone care so much whether Mike Watt is going to perform on the DDN shows? Is Sonic Youth not enough?????

Would it not be kool for him to 'perform' the answering machine part?

No.

No, it wouldn't be cool or not cool. Sonic Youth will probably just hook up that recording to something and have thurston do the piano with everyone else contributing with their share of noise.

They should wear some of the clothes that they used to wear at the time to give the gigs a more realistic effect.Perhaps losing a few pounds will also do the trick.Just imagine: ''Come and join the 'Sonic Youth Daydream Nation 3D Experience'! It's a blast!!!''.

and all these posts kinda defining that the whole "Don't Look Back DDN" shows are really justifying that this is a gimmicky way for promoters and some other folks to make a little more money.

i say, "why live in the past, when you have the future."

and btw, "Providence" was always played live via a tape recording like "secret girls".

i wish this whole subject of "don't look back" (the only thing i can think of when i read that is that horrific song by that classic rock band, Boston) would just die.

geez its like, why don't we now discuss that maybe we can have a Minutemen reunion with Sonic Youth to play "starpower" and then after that have the Stooges get on stage and a have a three-band-way version of "I wanna be your dog" and then maybe Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca can show up with all of them and then they all can perform Symphony # 100,000,000,000,000... and then we can have every popular musician on the planet show up they can all perform "We are the World"!

Peter Tosh & Mick Jagger?

Calm down, Scott. Calm down.

hehe i'm actually being abit sarcastic...

He has a point, though. When i bought a ticket for the first date i was really into the idea of seeing them play certain songs from that album that i've never seen them playing live, but now i think that the whole concept would probably ruin the way that i listen to it a little bit. A bit like when i went to see The Velvet Underground when they reformed and it put me off from listening to them for a while.Still, if that's what you have to do to please the fans these days, just get on with it.

Scott, you had me worried.

I've been looking for Thurston's "LEO" t-shirt in thrift stores for years, with no such luck!

thats kinda my point, didn't the VU live reunion (that happened in the 90's right?) get recorded? i remember hearing a cd of it, i think its the one with title of Roman Numerics for the year of the recording and well i remember it having pure awful renditions of some of the great classic VU material and i'm glad i never actually bought that album because it would've at least slightly tarnished my listening experience of the original vital VU tracks. hopefully SY won't go down the same path!

anyways a whole tour of SY doing exclusively an older albums worth of material seems to be something that would be reserved for Dinosaur acts like the Rolling Stones and a few others that i don't dare to mention... and i would have always thought that SY would never fall into those trappings, because they are so atypical, or have been at least.

Well, i was really excited to go to see them as they were 'THE VELVET UNDERGROUND MAAAANNN!!!' till i was at the actual gig itself and it was like being in a stadium (which you would notice even from the dvd that has been put out of the performance in Paris).I mean, can you imagine a band like them in that sort of setting?I just thought to myself:'' Fuckit!! this is just some old farts trying hard on a stage''.I have no problem with old or young farts who sound right onstage but they looked and sounded ridiculous in that context.Went to very few reunion gigs after that.What's the point most of the time?

yeah, i opted to not go to either the Dinosaur Jr. or the Pixies reunion gigs, which to me for the price were not worth it.

It's strange because the Pixies reunion i didn't mind as much as they weren't a good live band even back in the day, at least to these ears.

Jeez, whatta bunch of cynical killjoys.

It's not like SY have been broken up for years, and haven't made any decent music in decades. That's what makes this whole DDN thing special, to me anyway. They don't NEED to play those songs to draw a crowd.

Look, Mike Watt generally attends SY shows when they play here (I've seen him dozens of times), and it just occurred to me that it would be kinda neat if he joined them onstage for the occasion.

If it does happen, I'm sure everyone in attendance will dig it.

Yeah you're completely right. I just think it will be cool to see my favourite album performed live. Its not like they're making too big a deal over this thing and its not like they are gonna tour round the world each year doing a different classic SY album. I don't really think SY could ever be accused of living in their past. Just take this for what it is, a celebration of the album that secured their legacy, a celebration of Daydream Nation's upcoming 20 year birthday.

I would love Mike Watt to perform Providence, just because it would be fun.

Oh and how cool would it be if they filmed one of the concerts and interweaved it with footage from that era, live shows, daydream music videos and stuck a documentary about the album on as well.

Esthetically, I don't think it would sound right for a live person to replicate an answering machine message. Also, part of the beauty of that song is that the hiss and crackle of the answering machine tape sounded like a fire burning. Now, if Thurston had a real piano on stage and played it...wow!

Isn't that hiss and crackle the sound of an old amp dying? I'm sure I read somewhere that it is.

why not just play the original album over the PA while the 4 of them sit in a hippy dippy circle on stage in front of 10,000 confused fans and pass a bowl around for 80 minutes?

these "play the whole album" shows would be way better if the bands were covering SOMEONE ELSE'S album.

Sonic Youth doing Melvins' HOUDINI and Melvins doing DAYDREAM... that'd be fun!

It's all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$

About as cool as it was having "Led Zeppelin" play "Stairway to Heaven" at Live-Aid with the rhythm section of Duran Duran. Which is to say, not very cool at all.

the dinosaur reunion was great, really surprised the shit out of me. too bad now they are going to clunk a bunch of shit ass songs from their new album and take away from time from their set.

i mean, we are talking about sonic youth, the performances are no doubt going to be great, but i do find it pointless.

i would much rather see sy play a show with songs from across their whole career rather than focus on an old album.

besides, to everyone who is still super stoked on daydream: why the fuck do you keep buying their albums? you clearly wouldn't mind if the band broke up in 1990 so why even bother?

and re: the original thread theme: they can't perform it live, the background is a closely mic'ed, ultra distorted amp with a guitar turned down, they can approximate this sound but it's not the same. and can you imagine how stupid would it be for mike fucking watt to actually reenact a phone message he left for thurston almost 20 years ago that he never imagined would end up in a recording? "thurston, thurston".

all he would need is a mic fashioned out of a telephone like stevie wonder had when he performed "i just called to say i love you"


i so second this

ps: boston were awesome, r.i.p. brad delp.

That comment just has no basis in reality. You need to separate what you would like to believe from what is true. We simply want to hear some great music performed live. That's all there is to it. We love their new shit and will be very sad the day when their career ends.

So often you anti-capitalists forget one important thing: it wouldn't be about the $$$$$$ without the people supporting it. So, I suppose you have something against individual choice, or you're an elitist who thinks that other people can't possibly know what's good for them.

If you would find a Daydream Nation tour to be distasteful, then say so. But limit your comments to that. The rest of us can decide for ourselves what we want, thank you.

i just got me a ticket for the DAYDREAM NATION show in munich! can´t wait to see it

i am SO going to be at the LA show. i love old and new sonic, the totality, the immensity... i'm looking forward to it, and to seeing them in coming years doing their thing. i see no problem revisiting an older period. maybe mike watt should call from a phone in pedro. in his "watt from pedro show" they joked about building him a phone booth to have on stage for him.

Are you kidding me? That would be a fucking great little bonus. It happening at the LA gig really isn't THAT far of a stretch from happening.....they're all still friends and Watt would prob. have a blast doing it.

"Did you find your shit?"

fuck, seeing WATT with sonic youth in itself would be a mindblast. who care about providence. and oh yeah, see DN alone is unreal. holding out for an NYC show...

If it was EVOl being played, the Watt being involved would be cool. In reality, on DDN, it's Thurston's ansaphone that is performing, not Watt.

On the whole I agree, I love the Daydream Nation shows and I certainly do not think its about the $$$$$$. However most people usually do not know what is good for them. Why we let the majority of people vote is beyond me (Tabloid reading, Big Brother watching jackarses). Although I think letting the ordinary person choose which concert to go to is safe enough....just about...

Ignorance is bliss I suppose

im amazed at folk calling barry hogan and all tomorrows parties people "cynical" i mean these guys should be applauded for their ability to put these artists (not just sy) in front of folk on what now appears to be a semi regular basis. barry hogan should be knighted.....

hopefully we may now get a full reproduction, be it live or on the ddn rerelease of providence, its about 15 minutes in total i believe!

If they were really going to do something about the album anniversary etc, it would have been 100 times more appealing if it was a one off and that was it.To play 5000 gigs of the same old album seems pretty much a tacky thing to do and it takes a lot off from what could have been a special occasion.

why don't they act out every song, have costume changes?

i checked watt's page (http://www.hootpage.com/), and it doesn't seem he has any gigs planned for july, not yet at least. maybe he could tour w/ them... maybe he'll be in the audience and call thurston on a cell phone...

aint watt a live stooge now. they must be touring with the wierdness all summer right?