I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 18, 2021] Dinosaur Jr.

Back in March when concerts were just starting to happen again, Dinosaur Jr were first out of the gate to announce a fall tour. I grabbed a ticket and it sold out almost instantly (yes, we were desperate for live music!).

I was excited more about the show than the fact that it was Dinosaur Jr.  The last time I saw them ( I can’t believe it was five years ago) the show was so good, I felt like didn’t really need to see them again.

Except for one thing.  The two shows I’d seen with them I was too close to the stage.  The guys’ amps are so loud that you can barely hear the vocals (bassist Lou Barlow even yelled at the people up front who complained–“stand father back, it’s physics!”).  So I wanted to stand further back to get the full Dino experience.

After being right up on the stage for Riley, I walked to the back and took up a spot in the middle of the room (I couldn’t voluntarily go all the way to the back).

And it was a much more enjoyable experience–except for the people around me.  There were a couple of really tall guys who just wouldn’t budge an inch. There were also a lot of loud people, including a guy who kept shouting “Just Like Heaven” (as if Dinosaur Jr is a band who takes requests).

Dinosaur Jr was originally J. Mascis (guitar), Lou Barlow (bass) and Murph (drums).  They made three albums, then Lou and Murph left.  J. made four albums, and then took a hiatus.  After a ten-year split, the trio reunited for the first of what has now been five albums (hard to believe it’s been over a decade since they reunited).

The only problem for me for this show is that I didn’t really listen to their new album at all.   And they wound up playing five songs IN A ROW from that album right near the beginning of the set.

Although they opened with two really old songs, which was fun.  They played three songs from their debut album, which I was quite surprised by.  They opened with “Bulbs of Passion”  and followed it with “The Lung” from their second album.

Then it was the five new songs. J. doesn’t usually say a lot, but he went to the mic and introduced a song from the new album and played a short 15 second little riff. He then stopped and thanked the crowd.  I thought maybe somebody had messed up.  But who knows.  Intentional or not, it left a smile on J’s face and the crowd cheered.

They played the Lou-sung “Garden.”  He introduced this song (he talks a lot more than J.) and it’s always fun to see him playing guitar (and J playing bass).

They didn’t play any songs from their other reunion albums, which seemed odd to me.  They played a song from 1999’s Beyond and then they moved into the classics.  I often wonder how Lou and Murph feel about playing songs on albums that they weren’t a part of.  They presumably do not care.

Up until this point I had been wondering if I should have gone to the Vagabon concert that night.  Dino sounded great from where I was, but they weren’t playing anything I wanted to hear.

Then they played “The Wagon” one of my favorite Dino songs.  No offense to Lou and Murph, but I got introduced to Dino after they left and that is my favorite era of the band.

They followed it with “Freak Scene” from Bug, which was outstanding and then they went back to their debut for “Mountain Man.”  I can’t believe that I’ve now seen them play four songs from that album.

J. played the riff to “Start Chopping” and from out of nowhere, a bunch of young (they seemed much younger than everyone else around them) kids started a pit.  There were even some little kids, like it was a family mosh pit.  And when “Feel the Pain” started (yes!) the crowd went berserk (as they should) and the pit was surging.

They ended the set with another song from their first album “Forget the Swan.”  This song was great–a long jamming track that stretched and warbled and swooped and dived and crashed and just jammed out.

I read an interview with J. recently which undermined my idea that they were curmudgeonly.  And i Felt like at least Lou was having a really good time up there. J never really moved or changed expression and Murph is invisible back there.  But Lou is a bundle of hair and humor.

Their first encore track was a new song, and then Lou told us that he talked to his wife earlier in the day and she said that she had heard them on Sirius XM.  It was a really good song, she said.  Yes, he said, it’s from a really good album.

That song?  “Little Fury Things.”  I was astonished to realize I hadn’t seen them play it before.  Did they only play it because Lou’s wife heard it?  If so, thanks to Lou’s wife.

I never expected them to play “Just Like Heaven” mostly just to spite the guy who kept yelling for them to play someone else’s song.  But they did end with it and it was fantastic.  I love the way the song is sincere and close to the original until the “You” part which Lou screams like a demon.

When the song was over, J. left the stage but Lou and Murph jammed a little longer, and that was pretty cool too.

While it wasn’t the best show I’d been to, the second half was outstanding and I decided that I was glad I went to this show instead of Vagabon (although I’ve heard that Vagabon was amazing).