19 July 2007: Sonic Youth

19 July 2007
Sonic Youth
Berkeley Community Theater
1930 Allston Way, Berkeley [Map]
Drinks consumed: NONE, the theater is dry, and you don't need to know how many Jameson shots I had between BART and the show.

I only have one awful cameraphone picture from this show because I went without Koshi. But if you know Sonic Youth, and you know Daydream Nation, you will recognize the blurry image on the backdrop, and that alone makes it worth posting.


I went in expecting this show to be good, but I was secretly worried that they'd gone the way of a band that's been around to long—i.e., suck hard—or that the venue, which is basically a high school auditorium, would make me spend the entire show wishing I was anywhere BUT there, even Slim's. Fortunately, that wasn't the case at all and they rocked the hell out of the shithole that is the Berkeley Community Theater.

Thurston Moore has a crazy way of playing guitar reminiscent of, well, someone jerking off feverishly. It's amazing to watch his hands. (Does that make me a pervert?) Kim Gordon sounded a little rough but that's to be expected for an indie rocker born in 1953. The most amazing thing is that they formed in 1981—the year I was born!—and they are still incredible on stage (back off, Rolling Stones fans).

The venue sucks. I mean really sucks. But it's big, and Sonic Youth playing Daydream Nation required a big space. Assigned seating for a rock show is retarded and the flashlight gestapo was out of control ESPECIALLY considering the median age of this show was probably 32. Sonic Youth is not Fall Out Boy. But somehow the band managed to sound better than any band I've heard in this space to the point where I wish they would have played the album again from the beginning once they finished the first round—and not just because the Community Theater's lack of booze made us miss "Teenage Riot" because we had to pre-drink at Beckett's. We never even made it around to finding our seats, we just lined up on the side of the center aisle and squeezed into a row with empty seats and a very friendly couple.

This might sound sacrilegious, but we left during the first song of the encore. None of us had any interest in hearing anything from Rather Ripped so we skipped out and caught BART before the raving crowd made its way out of the theater.

Best show of the year so far? Damn close. Sea and Cake was really good though...