After gently opening proceedings with nothing more than an acoustic and a nice pair of strides, Kid Sam alumnus Kieran Ryan established himself ideally suited for Hamer’s grand Hall when he was joined by two drummers and Panics guitarist Drew Wootton, filling out his eight-piece band. Rolling confidently through a shot set of lush lullabies for hipsters, they drew more than a passing resemblance to Arcade Fire, mostly for the sheer amount of people on stage.
Throughout Sonic Youth’s last 15 years, it appeared as though alternative music icon Thurston Moore had become somewhat of a curmudgeon. Gone was the spaced out and seemingly stoned Thurston of excellent ’92 documentary The Year Punk Broke, who spouted psychedelic rants out of hotel windows and generally fell about as the eternal slacker. But if tonight’s show was anything to go on, the buffoon is back. The surreal hi-jinks rolled out one after the other, so flawlessly that it provoked questions of whether we were witnessing a well-rehearsed show, or simply the results of hallucinogens. The show began unexpectedly enough with the house lights still on when Thurston, who had been quietly milling about on stage setting up, suddenly turned to the audience and started to mumble lengthy band member introductions. He fell over his words, allowing sustained pauses for effect. He paid particular attention to harpist Mary Lattimore, focusing on that despite being a fully fledged member of his band Chelsea Light Moving, she rarely played a show with them. He then harped on about the exorbitant expense involved in getting her and her instrument around.
After ten more minutes of chat (including calling violinist Samara Lubelski ‘Mary’ a few times) the music finally began after with Orchard Street, from last year’s Beck Hansen-produced Demolished Thoughts. The set meandered through many distractions. Amongst these were a long introduction to a song about meeting girls in record stores that wasn’t then played, Thurston being unaware as to what month it was, and him inexplicably stopping the set to go off stage and locate a tissue, as band and audience alike sat in silence wondering just what the hell was happening. The banter was well aligned with the music, as both proved curiously bizarre and prone to take peculiar journeys towards ambiguous endings. Acknowledgement must also go to the Melbourne Festival for throwing a pile of money at Mary to play this one show. She was worth every penny, adding an angelic lightness to what could be quite dissonant and unsettling. At times the band represented the components of a delay pedal, with the violin playing the high parts in a loop, and the guitars and drums providing the whoosh underneath. It was all immensely artful and entertaining. Songs from his three major solo albums elegantly shifted before your eyes, from soothing detuned acoustic folk ditties on ‘fleeting happiness and the steady ebb of time’, into face-melting avant-garde noise jams that kept the Sonic Youth fans satiated.
BY NICK HILTON
LOVED: Some glass bottle on the strings action.
HATED: The over-laughers in the crowd.
DRANK: Bulmers, Cascade, Extra chewing gum saliva.
