Perform Daydream Nation – Roundhouse, London

This is the third year of ATP’s “Don’t Look Back” series of concerts, created to allow bands and musicians the chance to perform seminal works from yesteryear. It has been a varied concept since inception, Teenage Fanclub’s, “Bandwagonesque”, Belle and Sebastian “Are you feeling Sinister” and Ennio Morricone performing extracts from classic films like The Good the bad and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dynamite.

Tonight’s show is at the newly refurbished Roundhouse in Camden previously the scene of several landmark shows in London music history, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix and The Door’s in the late 60’s, Pink Floyd, The Ramones in the 70’s. The venue closed in 2004 for complete refurbishment, re-opening with the BBC’s Electric Proms season in late 2006. 

We are here for Sonic Youth. Their third night in a three night run of “Daydream Nation” the album which was released to little appreciation in 1988, its stature has grown over the years to the point where it is now described as one of the most important rock albums of all time and was recently added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in the US, which tells you something of its calibre.

Your reviewer has grown up listening to this album, so tonight was special, in fact I was so looking forward to the gig that the potential to be disapointed was just around the corner waiting for me, waving, and saying “hello, this is gonna be rubbish, you should’ve stayed in and watched Strictly Come Dancin” Thankfully potential disappointment didn’t rear its head and Sonic Youth looked as into it now as I imagine they did when they first played London in 1983, from the opening “your it, yeah your it” of Teenage Riot into the ferocious Silver Rocket, which quite literally was burning a hole in my pocket.

Its such a brilliant concept that ATP have come up with here. So simple but equally unrivalled in its effectivness and Daydream Nation is the perfect choice, the album takes on a different guise when played live, Hey Joni and Cross the Breeze seem faster, more intense than on record, where as Total Trash seems even more laid back and slackerlike than the recorded version. Everyone bar Steve Shelley contributes vocals, Lee Ranaldo on Eric’s Trip and Rain King, Thurston Moore alongside the dueling, chiming guitars of Candle, Kim Gordon on the anti hollywood rant of The Sprawl,  “are you for sale ?, does f*** you sound simple enough”  yes thanks Kim it does.

I refute the idea that Kim Gordon is 54, surely this can’t be right, she looks amazing, and when not on bass duty she swirls around the stage like a whirling dervish, silouhetted in purple on the walls of the Roundhouse, this is a band who are definitely not going through the motions just to pick up a long overdue pay cheque. Which has been suggested by one or two.

After the final trilogy of feedback led intensity the band leave to rapturous screams from the crowd, they return to encore with several tracks from last years Rather Ripped LP, with added bass from Pavements Mark Ibold, which is the only hole I can pick in tonights performance, a lot of the crowd started to drift away when they realised they were’nt going to get a selection of choice Youth’ cuts from the last twenty odd years. But I think we can forgive them for this, because 20 years since its release, Daydream Nation is more relevant now than it ever has been. Go out and buy it kids and when you’ve finished listening to it, regret the fact you didn’t get to see it live.

by Rich