Sonic Youth – Personal Fest, Buenos Aires– 5/11/11
5/5
By: Michael Hannan
After the announcement in October that Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore had decided to separate after 27 years of marriage, I was greeted with that familiar sinking feeling that I would never get the chance to see one of the bands which had drastically altered the way in which I think about guitar music. However, despite Matador maintaining that Sonic Youth's future was "uncertain", the band pledged to fulfil their commitment to play five dates across South America. Finding myself on the continent and within striking distance of the first night in Buenos Aires, my mood changed from despair to uncontainable excitement.
After a very long bus journey I arrived at the site of the unusually named Personal Fest in a sports field on the outskirts of the city. There, I found many people who were just as excited as I was. Despite there being no beer on sale everyone was wearing the same silly grin of anticipation. Impromtpu chants broke out everywhere of, "Soneec Youth, Soneec Youth" in thick Argentinian accents. It was like everyone's favourite football team had won the cup and would be arriving very soon to parade the trophy. The seemingly never ending wait for SY's stage time was made worse by having to endure one too many Reggaeton bands, however the crowd would the ease the tension by repeating its mantra of "Soneec Youth" every time there was a break in a bongo solo.
When they finally arrived and the first screeches of Ranaldo and Moore's guitars rang out, any expectation that I had formed of what a Sonic Youth show would entail was completely blown apart. After storming through a couple of tracks from The Eternal they began one of their many transitional pieces mainly designed to take up time while one band member tunes their guitar. It's these parts that are so mesmeric and engrossing that the crowd is almost hypnotised as they build into 'Kotton
Krown' and 'Stereo Sanctity' which seem to slowly appear and take shape through a cloud of noise.
After pausing for breath with Ranaldo serenely moving a violin bow across the neck of his guitar, whilst Gordon and Moore casually lean on theirs like shovels, they begin a trilogy of tracks from Daydream Nation which places everyone firmly in the palm of their hands. 'Hey Joni' lifts everything into a frenzy descending down into 'The Sprawl' and 'Cross the Breeze' which induces an abundance of smiling, bobbing heads. Speaking for the first time in the set, Moore pauses to thank the audience and to dedicate 'Tom Violence' to "all the boys and girls in the pit". The cacophony of noise created by Moore behind Ranaldo's spoken vocal is aided by his use of a metal stage fan which he dutifully crashes into the neck of his instrument.
In the aftermath, Ranaldo explains that the next track is one that, "we haven't played in a while, but sometimes it’s good to be rusty" and they launch into, 'Brave Men Run (In My Family)' a song they have only played live a handful of times in their long career. This coupled with a frenetic version of 'Death Valley '69' brings the show to a heady climax. I look around at what I was told was the biggest crowd of the weekend dazzled by the sight of the band members each trailing their guitars on the ground behind them and sliding them into amps I thought to myself, 'I've never seen anyone do that to a guitar before.'
They then round off the set with a gorgeous extended version of 'Sugar Kane' which for me is one of the best examples of SY's ability to fuse melody and noise. It just sounds beautiful. Still leaving the crowd wanting a whole lot more they exit to the sound of screeching feedback punctuated by a rather impressive fireworks display. I leave Personal Fest with my life feeling a little bit more complete, and the inability to stop chanting, "Soneec Youth".
Artists in this article: Sonic Youth
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