Sonic Youth Gossip - Kim in Vancouver

Saw Kim play in Vancouver on Friday. First time I've seen her play music since my last Sonic Youth show 14 years ago. She's got a really solid band, it was cool to hear the beats reproduced (mostly) live. That drummer has a lot going on!

She played THE COLLECTIVE front to back except for, oddly, one of my faves "Tree House". In its place was an improvisation (I scoped out setlist.fm - somebody confirmed with the bass player). She also didn't do a second "BYE BYE" like I've seen in recent set lists. Then we got a few from NO HOME RECORD - though not "Sketch Artist" and "Murdered Out", surprisingly. The songs from the first record do sound better with the live band, and I was looking forward to hearing how those two in particular might sound. I figured they were potential encores...

She closed with "Grass Jeans", which I thought was new but apparently came out a few years ago. Oops. Lights on, no encore. That was a bit of a shock - the show had started early, even. Oh well - they packed a lot into the 70-minute set, but I saw Pavement do a 70-minute headlining set at a festival the next night.

She didn't play guitar on everything, but she played enough (and her other guitarist sounds great!). There were some nice noise interludes, and I think she had a separate effects board for her voice, which was pretty cool. Seemed to read most of the lyrics from her music stand. Given that I never get to see ex-Sonic projects, I'm delighted to have had the opportunity, but something about it felt weird. I can't quite put my finger on it, and it could certainly just be me, in a very strange headspace these days. Still, awesome band, very big sound (the bassist and her synth are groundshaking), and if you like THE COLLECTIVE (which I do, very much), I encourage you to see her if she comes your way. Which you probably would anyway. But hey, content!

Man I write like shit