Sonic Youth are aging well. I don’t mean physically of course (although if I look as good as Kim Gordon does when I’m 56, I will die a happy woman) – I’m talking musically. With 16 albums under their belt – not to mention 25+ years in the biz, and god knows how many exhilarating and life-changing experiences – these NYC alt-rockers have successfully resisted doing the one thing that causes death to alt-rockers everywhere: going soft.
One listen to their most recent album, The Eternal, proves this – it’s chock full of crash-bang drumming, smoky vocals, dramatic crescendos and decrescendos, and haunting, moody guitars. Live, it proved equally epic, as the fivesome churned out attitude and fervor Thursday night to a packed Electric Factory crowd.
Freak-folk’s rising star Kurt Vile opened, along with his back-up band, the Violators. Over the past year, I’ve seen Vile at least a half-dozen times and each time, he gets better. A year ago, there was no way the song-writer –with a Dylan-y voice and penchant for swirling guitars – could have rocked such a large space – he was too busy starting at the floor.
But something (a contract with Matador perhaps?) seems to have imbued him with confidence as of late, and Thursday night he proved his mettle once more, upping the ante with hard-hitting power chords and emphatic vocals. The Violators matched his intensity, delivering a short set of fiery, psychedelic anthems.
Next up was LA-based The Entrance Band, who signed to Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label earlier this year. Clad all in white – and steeped in psychedelia – the trio offered brooding, hypnotic anthems, intensified by thumping, intricate bass parts and rousing, theatrical vocals.
Bassist Paz Lenchantin (A Perfect Circle/Zwan/Brightblack Morning Light) was the star of the show here, skulking around in 4-inch heels, raising her fist to the air in a salute, and boogying down and bending her knees like some sort of broken, rock’n roll Barbie doll – all while offering ethereal vocals and well-tuned bass licks. The group’s half-hour set elicited thunderous applause.
Sonic Youth took the stage last, after a short set change transformed the venue into something that seemed straight out of Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555: giant screens with abstract silhouettes, large, flashing LEDS, and hyperactive floodlights that changed color and intensity as the band galloped through track after track.
In 45 minutes, the band played The Eternal in near-entirety, grunting, hissing, orchestrating brilliant, deliberate feedback, stomping and grooving their way through the already new classics. Songs like “Anti-Orgasm” thrashed along violently, while “Poison Arrow” was haunting and affecting. Slow jam “Antenna” had a Radiohead quality, with mellow guitars and lyrics, and washed over the crowd like a wave.
The band ended with “Death Valley ‘69” – a rocking old tune that had the audience in hysterics – then kicked off their encore with “Beauty lies in the eye,” a whimsical dream pop number that featured Gordon singing. The final tune of the night was “‘Cross the Breeze”, the twisted, epic Daydream Nation number that starts off delicately with just guitar, then explodes into a frenzy of thrashing and angst. The audience cheered raucously as the band left the stage, and the venue seemed filled with energy and fire.
