Killer Tunes Bubblegum Disaster

Sonic Youth put on a typically great show last night at Irving Plaza. My only complaint is that I would’ve preferred that they had played more than two songs that weren’t played at the Central Park gig, and that Kim didn’t dominate the setlist with eight songs to Thurston’s five and Lee’s two. Still, I can’t complain because they did play the song I was most hoping to hear, “Skip Tracer”, and it’s no problem to me to get to see them play “Candle” and “Shadow Of A Doubt” again. Though I think the Central Park show was more exciting and was a slightly better performance; the intimacy of Irving Plaza compared to Summerstage really changed the tone of the show and I think the audience had more fun overall. There was a lot more moshing, stage diving, and crowd surfing than I’m normally used to, but it was never out of hand. It’s weird, the most intense the crowd got all night was for “Kissability”, which I’d never really thought of as a popular Sonic Youth song. For me, I’d say the highlights of the show were “Skip Tracer”, the ending of “Radical Adults…”, the particularly tense reading of “Shadow Of A Doubt”, and the finale of “Kool Thing” with Kim’s rant about cd prices and the record industry. “Plastic Sun” was a lot of fun, too.

The Liars opened up, and they were extremely good. I had their record, but very seldom listened to it besides the first two songs, but their set last night was so perfect from start to finish that I’m now convinced that they are a great band. I’m going to have to pull out the album later on – I can’t believe I didn’t catch on to them earlier. Granted, at least half of their set were new and unreleased songs, so I think that perhaps much of what I was responding to were those songs and their intensity of performance. I’m definitely looking foward to that next album, and seeing them live again.

Sonic Youth’s setlist, 11/29/02:

Bull In the Heather / The Empty Page / Rain On Tin / Skip Tracer / Kissability / Candle / Plastic Sun / Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style / Shadow Of A Doubt / Karenology / Drunken Butterfly / Sympathy For The Strawberry // Disconnection Notice / Making The Nature Scene /// Kool Thing