tulsa show, june 21 (pics, setlist, etc.)
 

i meant to post this earlier, but i've been kinda busy the past few days. i saw sonic youth with awesome color this past wednesday and it was fucking amazing. it was pretty much the first real show i've been to (i refuse to count aerosmith and cheap trick in some huge stadium a few years ago as "real" anything, except maybe really underwhelming, but what was i expecting?). i thought they were fucking awesome, and awesome color was damn good as well. i was so close i could've groped kim (i half-expected this annoying drunk guy to attempt to do so). i suppose it was somewhat surreal, but i was mostly too overwhelmed to feel much beyond a sort of numb ecstasy. i know enough about the band to know what to expect mostly, though in some way i was surprised by thurston. he was much more charismatic in his own idiosyncratic way than i expected--very entertaining. he was energetic & carefree, and it was contagious. kim was also very engaging, but in way relatively complementary to thurston's. i actually made eye contact with both of them. lee was fairly stoic, but he played well when i could hear him (my only complaint was not being able to hear lee as well as i would've liked). he got way out of tune one time after a noise breakdown, but he recovered well. steve just looked damn happy on his drums, and it sounded like it too.

i would say the highlights were schizophrenia, eric's trip, 100%, pacific coast highway, pink steam, and the encore as a whole . . . but above all, brother james. holy fucking shit, that song was incredible live. it started with lee standing perfectly still as he hit the opening chords (except the necessary arm movements of course) with his eyes wide open and a creepy grin. it was like he was possessed. kim gave an amazing vocal delivery. it ended with some super-noisy chords delivered in synchronized guitar flailing between lee and thurston--my favorite live sy move.

anyway here's the setlist, but only in relative order until the encore(s).

incinerate
schizophrenia
reena
eric's trip
pattern recognition
do you believe in rapture?
what a waste
turquoise boy
100%
pacific coast highway
rats
pink steam
or

jams run free
brother james

shaking hell


and some of the better pictures i took in the following post . . .

many of these aren't even zoomed in at all, and i've cropped most of them. they are all thumbnails, so just click on them to make them larger.

 

thurston during schizophrenia

 

kim during pattern recognition

 

"you're the one"

 

lee during eric's trip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's hard to tell because i had to crop it, but he's stretching to his full height to reach that beam

 

 

 

 

 

Nice pictures. I guess they put Schizophrenia in their list. Too bad they didn't play it in Atlanta.

Sweet...The set lists are just getting better and better (even though this was a couple days ago).

...yeah!...cool pics...I just remebered today that they also played pch...

Definitely a fun show, probably the best I've seen since the Chicago show on the NYCG&F tour. Had kept up with the setlists, so I knew they'd break out Shaking Hell and PCH, but Brother James was a welcome surprise. Good crowd overall -- got stuck next to a couple loud Bonnaroo meatheads who talked through the second half, but whatever.