Sonic Youth - Live in Brooklyn 2011 (Silver Current) Review

Live in Brooklyn 2011 documents the last days of Sonic Youth in life-affirming fashion with a deep cuts setlist to kill for

There is sonic life before death. With no signs of terminal decline, Live in Brooklyn 2011 is a vital document of the last days of Sonic Youth that feels more alive than most bands manage during their early bloom. Lee Ranaldo told me that he considers this outdoor gig in Brooklyn “the last concert”, although they were contractually obliged to play another five shows in South America. But it was their last waltz before they announced the split. The release itself is styled as a pseudo bootleg in the tradition of Dylan’s Great White Wonder and like last year’s In/Out/In it’s a reminder of how much these sonic adventurers meant (and continue to mean) to so many of us.

Live in Brooklyn 2011 is far from a standard set and Thurston Moore tells the audience as much: “We started rehearsing two days ago. We decided to go, like, super deep. So it’s been a while since we’ve played some of these fuckers.” That last word he draws out, still the playful Thurston we saw free associating in Dave Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke tour film. “Mark was always in the audience, so he knows them better than us,” he adds, referring to Mark Ibold of Pavement, who joined SY on bass after Jim O’Rourke’s departure. Introduction dispensed with, the band detonate “Starfield Road” from Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star and all pretence goes up in flames.

Indeed, expect the unexpected here. Deep cuts from their first decade and choice blasts from the avant-grunge era of Dirty and Experimental Jet Set rub up against numbers from what would turn out to be Sonic Youth’s final studio album, The Eternal. Delight in the focus on Bad Moon Rising, including a killer outing for “Ghost Bitch”. Hold yr arms aloft as Kim Gordon burns the night sky with “Flower”, repeatedly demanding we “Support the power of women”. Hell yeah. That the contemporary tracks more than hold their own (immolate yrself with the Kim-led “Sacred Trickster” if you don’t believe me) is testament to the fact that there was no long fade into obscurity where this band was concerned.

Thurston is on fine form engaging the crowd. Introducing “What We Know” (from The Eternal), he mock prophesies that a “large rattlesnake head” is going to appear from Manhattan and introduce them to 2012 (in August!). The crowd cheers and one merry prankster shouts out, “LSD!” Thurston responds in kind. “Yes, it’s going to spray LSD on our heads like angel dust and we all become women.” Right on, Thurston. Armchair psychoanalysts might have a field day with Sonic Youth playing the title track from his first solo record Psychic Hearts as part of the encore. As Thurston was about to light out for the territories away from the group that made him, it’s possible to read some coded statement of intent in this choice, although since Steve Shelley initiated the setlist, perhaps a cigar is just a cigar.

As a celebration of thirty years of Sonic Youth magic, Live in Brooklyn 2011 is nothing short of invigorating; it really is brimming with life. Circumstances surrounding the band’s sonic death were such that we’ll never know what might have been, but what they left behind continues to wake us up to the possibilities of experimental rock music.

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