I’m a massive Sonic Youth fan, and have been for close to 20 years, but I also know that at their worst, Sonic Youth gigs can run the risk of devolving into self-indulgent art-rock wankery. I’ve been at Sonic Youth gigs like that. Thankfully, last night’s performance of Daydream Nation at the Enmore Theatre avoided this trap, for the most part.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I arrived a few songs into The Scientists’ set, and even though I’m not familiar with Blood Red River, the album in question, I was mighty impressed. Kim Salmon was a wailing rock banshee, and the band set the bar pretty high for Sonic Youth in terms of feedback-fueled groove. Definitely will be checking out this album now.

However, good as The Scientists were, we were all here for Sonic Youth, and out they strode in front of a gigantic homage to the album cover, Gerhard Richter’s ‘Kerze’. Without a word spoken, or even a smile to the audience, they launched into the dreamy prelude to Teenage Riot.

Photo used with kind permission of Vanessa © 2008

At this point I started to wonder if this was going to work. I’ve listened to this album so many times, it’s ingrained. Knowing exactly what song is going to come next, all they way through the gig, could be pretty boring, right? Well, in this case, not at all. No sooner had the squalling finish of Teenage Riot drifted off, than we were flung head-first into the thrash of Silver Rocket. Bloody hell, I’m tired already and it’s only two songs in!

This was the tone for the night. One familiar track after the next, not a word spoken by the band, all the way through to the end of Eliminator Jr. On a few occasions I sensed they were about to go off the rails, and prepared myself to go get a drink until they remembered they had an audience, but each time they seemed to pull themselves back from the edge.

Photo used with kind permission of Vanessa © 2008

With the final notes of the Trilogy ringing out, we got our first words from the band, some actual smiles, and they wandered off, only to come back a few minutes later to play some newer tracks. But somehow this was a different band. Thurston was chatty, and once Mark Ibold came on to relieve Kim of her bass-playing duties, she shimmied like she was trying out for the B-52’s. Most of the encore tracks were from more recent albums, especially last year’s Rather Ripped, but they dipped into the back-catalog for Drunken Butterfly, which live, rocked like I always imagined it would.

I came home with a sore back, sore feet, ringing ears and a grin a mile wide on my face. Not bad for a bunch of 50+ year olds.