What can be said about the legendary rock band Dinosaur Jr. that hasn\u2019t been said a thousand times? It\u2019s a simple truth that enthusiasts of grunge, shoegaze or really any indie-rock movement owe a lot to the band. On Oct. 18 at The Castro Theatre, Bay Area fans showed up ready to worship for the band\u2019s sold-out show.<\/p>\n
Guitarist and frontman J Mascis, bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph took the stage to the piercing hum of John Cale\u2019s electric viola from The Velvet Underground\u2019s \u201cVenus in Furs,\u201d a sonic foreshadowing of sounds to come. As they started to tune up, audience members preemptively pushed their protective earplugs deeper into their ear canals. The tight-knit trio launched into \u201cSevered Lips\u201d from its 1985 debut album, Dinosaur, and it immediately became clear that the fundamental difference between a Dinosaur Jr. record and a Dinosaur Jr. concert is volume.<\/p>\n
From the jump, the slow, slacker-rock classic was transformed \u2014 and this is said with love \u2014 into a shockingly ear-splitting barrage of noise. There was something almost humorous about the juxtaposition of the effortless strumming and plucking of Mascis and Barlow with the all-consuming distortion that blared from the speakers. It was a wall of sound to a degree that is rarely heard nowadays, the shredding of guitars sounding quite literally like a paper shredder.<\/p>\n
This distortion is so integral to their style that the band has turned it into a full-fledged art form. One can make out the subtle differences, from sounds akin to mechanical whirring to others like a low hissing in each song. Therein lies the beauty of this blend of punk and noise rock: It achieves the truest form of rock\u2019s rebellious spirit \u2014 no mistake is identifiable as one. Even the feedback of the microphone feels like it could be intentional, and who are you to say it\u2019s not?<\/p>\n
After \u201cWatch the Corners,\u201d Mascis took the mic to announce that the band would now play some material from its new, critically acclaimed record, There Near. The tracks carry a remarkable sense of familiarity that spells out a real return to form. It is refreshing to see, hear and feel how natural authenticity comes to a band that could\u2019ve easily sold out and done some tacky facsimile of its \u201990s shtick. Instead, fans can delight in a soundscape both comfortingly classic and thrillingly fresh.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wanna hear a song from 1986?\u201d Barlow asked, the first of several introductions as he later cycled through other years: 1987, 2007 and 1984. The band\u2019s long history came to the forefront with these shoutouts, reminding the audience of the impact the trio has had on the culture of rock. While \u201crock is dead\u201d is an annoyingly ubiquitous, albeit not entirely unfounded, sentiment, the magnitude and enthusiasm of this audience formed a solid counterargument.<\/p>\n
While the crowd collectively expressed some degree of veneration, different pockets of the crowd showed that reverence in distinct ways. Most unexpected was the notable number of audience members who were in their teens and 20s. The young fans formed a horde just below the stage and crashed against one another as they moshed. However, others stood further back and bafflingly bobbed their heads as if relaxed by the sharp fuzz of the incredibly loud guitar. Generally, these were the older folks, so one could intuit that they had progressively worn their ears into submission after multiple decades of service to the band\u2019s fandom.<\/p>\n
As part of the encore, the band played 1993\u2019s \u201cStart Choppin\u2019,\u201d a song so good that a wave of awe swept over the room. It was likely a manifestation of an audience reckoning with the glory of the music, but the smell of the room made it undeniable that these were the glossy-eyed stares of a crowd that were united if not by a love of the band then by a collective state of being profoundly stoned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What can be said about the legendary rock band Dinosaur Jr. that hasn\u2019t been said a thousand times?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,195424,195425,195428,195426,195427,101,103,102,195431,104,106,105,195434,80104,195429,195433,195430,195432],"class_list":["post-505591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area","tag-dinosaur-jr","tag-j-mascis","tag-john-cale","tag-lous-barlow","tag-murph","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-severed-lips","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-start-choppin","tag-the-castro-theatre","tag-the-velvet-underground","tag-there-near","tag-venus-in-furs","tag-watch-the-corners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}