plumb the feedback

For some reasons, I feel a bit compelled to try and keep up with the pace of posting here this month, whatever works. So again I’m recycling old stuff, this one written sometime back in 2007. I just bought my copy of The Eternal this morning; Sonic Youth is still amazing (more on that later of course). One afterthought about this gig review: I did not mention that former Pavement member Mark Ibold was on stage with the band in Shanghai that night, mainly because I somehow did not recognize him (embarrassing because I love Pavement too), and he’s now the latest official Sonic Youth member.

Jams blasting free

The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crimes and gangs forgivable means of escape. – Federico Garcia Lorca

I have been a Sonic Youth fan for fuck-knows how long but watching them performing a bunch of songs I already know by heart in the triply crawlspace that is Shanghai, the colossal city which I will always have a love-hate relationship with, still gave me a sense of familiar unreality that is absolutely thrilling, the nostalgic surge inside the heart when the well-worn, chiming guitar intros to "Candle" rolls along right at the start of their performance. These veterans have soldiered on extraordinarily through an exemplary career – name me another gang of forty-fifty somethings who could kick it this hard – and few other bands old or new are as blessed with their ability to meld pop aesthetics with avant-rock instincts.

This was supposed to be a historical milepost in their long career trajectories too, Sonic Youth’s first two shows in the Republic of China (they played earlier in Beijing the night before).

And we had the additional benefit that they are touring behind one of their most pop-savvy albums in Rather Ripped (helps too that it has a high quotient of quality Kim Gordon songs) and while their set is saddled stitched to perfection, they were still able to throw in a few sonic surprises. Like making us wait till four songs in before launching into the frightening distortion vistas of "Mote" – and how they did it was spectacular, Thurston Moore skyscraping his gear while Lee Ranaldo punish the length of his guitar wire for effects, an ocean of furious freewheeling jams amplified to a perilous pitch. From there, the band doused the fire by segueing immediately into the clear-blue reverie of "Do You Believe in Rapture?", a performance that also hits home the truth for me that Sonic Youth’s underrated melodic finesse really does come through most brilliantly in a live setting.

Somewhere in between the newer Ripped songs and revisits to old classics from Sister and Daydream Nation (their blistering-fast version of "Silver Rocket" was particularly rad, with the velocities raised to almost revulsion levels I shit you not), they found room for a few oddities like a hard-boiled rendition of Lee’s "Skip Tracer", the only song they played from Washing Machine. Nothing’s sacred in their hands, it seems: right before playing the crowd pleasing "100%", a crass-sounding Chinese pop song came on the sound system while Thurston’s guitar feedback bubbled angrily all over the transmission.

As Sonic Youth tunneled towards the end of their set with the breathlessly long gauze of "Pink Steam", their unbridled enthusiasm is clear as they returned for two encores to round up two hours of thunderous bliss. They are still shaking hell, alright – superfreaky memories are made of these.