Dinosaur Jr - HMV Forum, London - 9/6/09
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
First, an admission. Usually, my reports of gigs owe as much to the witty banter and cutting insight of those I attend the show with as they do my own fleeting flashes of inspiration. I've been told that the subsequent morning's reviews often read like a transcript of the previous night's mid song discussions, set to writing rather than being bellowed painfully in each other's ears.
But that wasn't possible with Dinosaur Jr last night, and as such, I'm kind of stuck for what to do here. Simply, the reformed Lou, Murph and J were so cacophonous that no such banter or debate was possible, however valiantly we might have tried. Communication was limited to the visual - watching a friend's face scrunch up with glee as Mascis unleashed another guitar solo we all prayed was endless, a cousin's mouth never being positioned in anything other than a blissful smile at the whole affair, the incessant, polite banging of heads amongst the entirety of our small but appreciative gathering, and the hearty but might as well have been silent laughter we all spontaneously went in to at the sheer ridiculousness of how great certain bits of it were.
So all I'm left with is my own thoughts, which are these. All Dinosaur Jr songs sound exactly the same. They're all played at the same volume, they're all structurally rather predictable, and it's impossible to tell the ones written six months ago from the ones written in the late Eighties. They haven't progressed, changed, or gotten better. What they've managed to do that is remarkable is, especially after such a long period of not playing together (in this, the classic line up, at least), never let the quality levels dip anything below brilliant.
Sure, their influences - Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Black Flag, The Replacements - are easy to spot. Even in the new material (they're about to release a new LP, Farm, from which surprisingly little is aired tonight), these remain the points of reference. But what they do with all these formulaic, predictable elements, easy to label boring in the hands of others, is push them to the very limits of what seems sensible, tasteful or cool. Dinosaur Jr are an assault, and they're unavoidable.
And what's great about seeing them play at the minute, with the line up they currently boast, is you know you're only gonna get the good stuff. And that means a set list largely drawn from Bug and You're Living All Over Me, dipping in to the debut only for an incredible finale of 'Forget The Swan', mining the mid nineties albums that Murph and Lou were largely absent from solely for its finest gold (this rendition of 'Feel The Pain' is nothing short of astounding), and reminding us all that their first post-reformation album, Beyond, actually challenges that previously mentioned pair of classics for a place at the top of the list of Greatest Dinosaur Jr albums. A band playing their best material, clearly enjoying it to this extent, at this volume? Little more could one ask for. I think everyone else agrees with me. But I won't find out for a couple of days. After the ringing in one's ears subsides.
Artists in this article: Dinosaur Jr
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