Dinosaur Jr

A combination of a lingering cold, an extremely wet night and a battle with an unforgiving parking meter left me running somewhat late for Dinosaur Jr’s second show at the Metro on Sunday night. To make matters worse, a confusion of times between Moshtix and Ticketek websites, one of whom had the doors opening at 7 and the other at 8, meant that I had no idea when the show actually started. I had been hoping to get there at least in time to catch the support set by bassist Lou Barlow, but managed to miss both him and earlier supports Regular John. I caught the final bars of what seemed to be an hilarious song about Lou’s cat that he thought was a girl and turned out to be a boy. The crowd, small in both age and abundance, were lapping it up, so it panged even more to know I’d missed what would have been a great set.

A long interval stretched on after this, and gave me the opportunity to resent all ages shows. I’m a hypocrite. I would have killed for the chance to have seen Dinosaur Jr when I was 15, but this was when they were well known and well played. When faced with a crowd of emo kids, the same one’s who wear Ramone’s t-shirts and pretend they listen to The Clash, all purporting to love this band who have been off the radar for what seems like a decade (I know, I know, they released a new album this year and J Mascis has been doing his thing for ages), it just made me wonder if they were there for the music, or there to be seen.

My question was pretty much answered when the band came on stage and some little upstart called out to J to hand him the set list from Lou’s set. The nerve!! Indie royalty gracing us with their presence, and this kid is more interested in what came before. I let that one slide, but when the band started and the motionless crowd remained so for the entire set, I realised that kids these days have a lot to answer for. Except for the little rocker next to me, who couldn’t have been more than 14 and belted out the words to every song. Champ.

My bias aside, another reason for the lax approach of the crowd could definitely be put down to a noticeable problem with very bad miking. I’m not sure how it sounded up the back, but down on the floor it was all guitars, no vocals, which was really disappointing. I’m a pretty big Dinosaur Jr fan, and the only song I recognised in the set was Feel The Pain, and this was out of about 12 or 15 songs. I’m reasonably sure that there were about 4 or 5 other songs I knew, but I couldn’t hear a darn thing.

Cutting my losses with the vocals, I chose to concentrate on the band’s technique instead, and was overwhelmed by the intricate guitar riffs and the beautiful bass lines these guys can still pump out. Murph was anything but disappointing on the drums, sporting a tasteful t-shirt, and letting it crack like there was no tomorrow.

Overall, a frustrating experience. These guys can definitely rock, but I’d recommend a better sound crew next time, or perhaps a better microphone set up. And as for all ages gigs, great in theory, but I think I’ll pass. I’m definitely getting miserable in my old age.

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