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Review: Sonic Youth at Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna
5:00AM Monday February 18, 2008
By Scott Kara
Songs on Sonic Youth's
Daydream Nation album still sound potent and current today.
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Like many in the sold-out crowd, I was nearly hoarse and soaked with sweat after hooting, howling and carrying on as Sonic Youth ripped through their classic 1988 album
Daydream Nation.
Hey, you don't get a chance to see a band play an entire album very often, and it's an even bigger occasion when it's a record that made the world sit up and bristle with sonic punk rock excitement 20 years ago.
And songs like rebel anthem
Teen Age Riot, the sprawling and swirling
Hey Joni and
Eric's Trip, and the rampant chaos of
Cross the Breeze still sound potent and current today.
This isn't just a concert, this is an event.
Sonic Youth are the sort of band who would rather play new songs, or songs off their latest album (which they get to do after playing Daydream).
Last year when they were presented with the idea of reprising the album for the Don't Look Back concert series, in which bands like the Stooges and Dinosaur Jr have played their classic albums live, they weren't convinced.
They love what they do. They take music seriously, but they have the all-important rebel attitude and mongrel to make songs seethe.
Drummer Steve Shelley is a time-keeping animal; guitarist Lee Ranaldo performs his axe wizardry with a wry confidence; bass player Kim Gordon is stunning, be it when she downs her bass to twirl her way around the stage, or spit the "give us a kiss" mantra of
Kissability; her husband, Thurston Moore, is the most unlikely looking guitar hero, with his dopey mop of blonde hair, but as he tortures his guitar he shows why he's one of the best in the business.
If there's one song that sums up the show it's the demented noise punk of the album finale,
Eliminator Jr. As Gordon shrieks the line "poor rich boy coming right through me", and the lads conjure up a fire storm of their own, it's as if it's all about to fall apart. But it never does.
Daydream's 14 songs all have that same unbridled impact and that's why it's a classic.
As support act, New Zealand's own noise kings, the Dead C - a reclusive yet prolific trio whom Sonic Youth are big fans of - did an excellent job of warping our brains to prepare for the main event.