Recently there was an amusing ILM thread about the reactions of UPenn's student body to the news that Sonic Youth had been booked for their spring concert. Of course, probably every school complains about their spring concert no matter who it is. I know mine does. This year my school got Third Eye Blind, and I think a lot of Towson students were just happy that for once it wasn't a hip hop act. Go figure. But what occurred to me in the course of the thread was that it was the closest show to me of the round of shows SY are doing this week, and in all likelihood my best chance to see them live until the next album and tour. The starter of the thread, Maria, offered to pick up tickets for non-students, so I took her up on it and went to the show on Friday.

I've only really been in Philly a handful of times and the last time was over 2 years ago, so I never really have a firm concept of how long it takes to get there and how to get around. So I ended up getting on the road way later than I should've to meet up with Maria. In fact, I got there a good hour late, and then it took me nearly another hour to confirm that I could not find the meeting place and find a working payphone to get in touch with her (this is the part where my friends and family once again chide me for still not having a cellphone). So it was a pretty ridiculous comedy of errors. But Maria was cool about it and left my ticket at will call. She tried to give me a description so I could spot her in the crowd, but I had no luck with that, so I never got to meet up, which was a bummer.

The openers were Cat Power and Citizen Cope. I got into Cat Power back in the mid-90's when it was just another band that Steve Shelley played in and I liked those records, but then I liked each record after that less and less and the whole weird cult that developed around her and her notorious live shows just turned me off. So I always kinda prided myself on the fact that I never saw Cat Power live. But since she was at this show and I got there early enough, I ended up seeing most of her set. It was actually kind of cool to walk through all these old buildings on the UPenn campus and into this little clearing full of purple light coming from a stage surrounded by not that many kids with a woman playing these quiet simple songs on piano. So her set was kind of pleasant and relaxing after driving and walking around Philly for a few hours. I didn't recognize many songs, since I never bought her last album and then got a promo of it a while later and could barely listen to it. She never broke down or did anything weird, just switched from piano to guitar and back a few times and barely said anything and ended her set abruptly.

The less said about Citizen Cope the better. All his songs seemed to be about guns and jail and homeless people and crazy people and were sung in some kind of ridiculous affected bluesman voice.

Sonic Youth's setlist: I Love You Golden Blue / Stones / Pattern Recognition / Unmade Bed / Eric’s Trip / Bull In The Heather / Dude Ranch Nurse / Paper Cup Exit / New Hampshire / Rain On Tin / Teenage Riot

Overall a pretty similiar set to what I saw them do last summer at the 9:30 Club, although a little sloppier, which is understandable since that was during a full-on tour and this was a shorter series of gigs. But I kinda went in expecting that, and even hoping for a lot of stuff from Sonic Nurse, which I liked to begin with but it's actually grown on me in the past few months to the point that I've decided I like it better than Murray Street (although "Rain On Tin" is one of my favorite SY songs ever and I'm pretty happy that it's remained in their set). Thurston forgot to sing at the beginning of "Rain On Tin", which is kinda funny considering the whole song only has like 8 lines, so Kim reminded him and they started it over. "I Love You Golden Blue" had a longer noise intro than I remember it having last time. "Stones" was one of my least favorite songs on Nurse but it's one of the best songs live. I'm still bummed that they never seem to play "Dripping Dream", though. "Eric's Trip" is never as good live as it should be, although "Teenage Riot" was maybe the best live version I've ever heard, and ended with a long long noise finale. At the end Thurston came down on the ground in front of the crowd and jammed his guitar in between the bars of a metal girder in front of the stage, and a roadie had to go get it out after the show.

Labels: concerts, ILM, Sonic Youth

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 at 11:34 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.