Sonic Youth & Shellac – Hammersmith Apollo, London – 31/12/10 and 1/1/11
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
I was raised on The Clash, and when I learnt to make my own decisions about what music was sufficiently ace, Blur were the first band I chose to obsess over. If you were to ask me who my all time favourite artists were – and Lord knows it’s a conversation I love having – those two would probably be top of the list. But in terms of bands who are actually continuing to make new music (great music) and regularly perform shows (life changing shows), personally, it doesn’t get any better than Shellac and Sonic Youth.
If you’re a three piece using only guitars, bass and drums to make your musical mark, I want you to sound like Shellac – nothing’s aggrandised and every point is hammered home with a mechanical intensity, yet they masterfully remain sincere enough in their delivery to impact on a very emotional as well as rhythmic level. For a band who are for the most part a-melodious, that’s quite a feat. I’ve never seen a bad Shellac show, and this evening’s performance reflected the celebratory New Years’ atmosphere by displaying more than ever a sense of humour for which they’re rarely given credit. They’ll rarely have played to an audience this large, but this makes them a perfect choice for a Sonic Youth support, as a Shellac live performance is a special type of thing that’s difficult to witness without having being somewhat bowled over. Chances are even the casual Sonic Youth fans here for the sake of something to do on a New Year’s Eve left West London with a new addition to their favourite bands list, as performances of songs like ‘The End of Radio’ rarely come this affecting. They also threw in a fair few treats for obsessives like myself too (the rarely aired, barely long enough to be called a song ‘Killers’ and that really great new one that goes “hand over hand over hand over hand” repeatedly – title, anyone?), and for that reason, I love them even more than I did when I arrived.
Of course, it’s New Year’s Eve, and there’s a lot of such love being felt around the Hammersmith Apollo tonight. I leave with glitter all over my face, something which hasn’t happened in the previous umpteen Shellac / Sonic Youth gigs I’ve ever attended, nor was it ever on the cards. Folk here are just happy. You don’t necessarily get the feeling however, after Shellac main fella Steve Albini’s rant about what he saw as Sonic Youth’s dubious ethics, that such bonhomie necessarily exists anymore between the evening’s two headline acts. In a recent GQ article, Albini pulled no punches (when does he ever?) when referring to Thurston and co.’s dealings with major labels, even going so far as to label their conduct ‘embarrassing’. Tonight, they make no mention of each other on stage (Thurston giving a New Year’s shout out to previous support act The Pop Group, but perhaps tellingly, not Shellac), the pairing of the two acts on the same bill that had me so excited seemingly being treated by everyone from the crowd, the promoters and the band themselves as a soured relationship that you just shouldn’t mention.
Sonic Youth ascend to the stage the second that 2011 dawns, amidst a flurry of cheers, ticker tape, party poppers and drinks raining down upon the stalls from the balcony. We’re wished a ‘Happy New Year!’ from an ever deadpan Moore, and then... things continue exactly as Sonic Youth shows have for the past five years or so, to be honest. The crowd are left to bring their own sense of occasion to proceedings, as other than maybe the best rendition of ‘Hey Joni’ I’ve ever heard, there’s little in the opening portion of the set that counts as Sonic Youth running through the hits. But perhaps to expect them to do so was somewhat idiotic. When you evaluate what you do get – they open with ancient Kill Yr Idols EP standout ‘Brother’, play the best bits of recent LP The Eternal, and chuck in ‘Schizophrenia’ like the fact that they’ve got a song as awesome as ‘Schizophrenia’ is seemingly no big deal at all – it’s hard to really complain, especially when the band are the only ones in the room who’ve remained sober enough to play an instrument at all, let alone to this level of stunning complexity. Oh, and the encore went ‘The Sprawl’, followed by ‘’Cross The Breeze’, and ended on ‘Kool Thing’. It’s difficult to name three better songs.
Whilst in the end indulging in my own personal obsessions didn’t exactly make for the most communal of New Years Eves, with their first ever such event (under the banner ‘Strange Days’) the All Tomorrow’s Parties folk who put this together set themselves a ridiculously high standard – next time, it’ll have to Blur supporting The Clash to really top it. Maybe that’s just me. Wait. It is just me.
Artists in this article: Sonic Youth, Shellac
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