Concert Review: Sonic Youth at the Uptown

Two things I need to be up front and honest about before I start this review of Saturday night’s Sonic Youth show at the Uptown: I haven’t listened to a Sonic Youth album all the way through since Murray Street, (maybe even A Thousand Leaves) and the one and only time I’ve seen Sonic Youth live was over 14 years ago, opening for R.E.M.

I like Sonic Youth as a casual fan. I’ll listen to their records when folks put them on, and take an interest whenever they’ve got a new record on the way, but by no means am I intimately familiar with their catalog. That out of the way, I’d like to say that this was everything I’ve always expected of a Sonic Youth show: feedback, improvisation, loudness, etc. And, of course, 30 seconds into the first song, you could see little wisps of smoke curl up toward the ceiling, with a certain smell hot on its heels.

Thurston Moore and company didn’t interact with the audience much. Between-song banter was kept to a minimum, and when it did occur, came across as mildly cryptic, such as Moore asking how many single moms were in the audience that evening, saying that it’s “a demographic I’m very curious about,” before launching into “Anti-Orgasm.” I swear to God, it sounded like he called it “Anti-Wargasm,” but my ears had been pretty brutalized by that point.