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Following the emotionally intense set provided by the heart-belting Built To Spill, including a dramatic finale which visibly reduces more than a couple of audience members to tears, Dinosaur Jr. take to the stage.
Allegedly Dinosaur Jr. are not a happy bunch of slacker rockers in the least bit. Relations between the band members have always been notoriously tense, but rumour has it that they’re not talking to each other at all, these days. Nada. Zippo. Silence.
It certainly seems plausible. During Green Mind opener Thumb, Jay Mascis extends the song to audience pleasing proportions – soloing his little heart out and smiling mischievously. One glance at Lou Barlow confirms the devil behind the grin as the foppy haired bassist squints on at Mascis, looking as though he’s struggling to anticipate when his frenemie plans on ending the piece, or where he’s going to take the tune next.
This performance of the eternal adolescent is part of DJ’s charm though. Their interaction with the audience is minimal, to say the least, and when they do say something it’s with about as much enthusiasm as a bong blitzed cashier in Burger King. They’re painfully, beautifully awkward and are still the moody, curmudgeonly genius’ they always were.
But, sod it. The drummer may be on a suspect ‘sickie’, but the replacement is pretty hard hitting, a pretty gnarly mosh pit breaks out in the style which the teenagers involved have probably learnt from watching classic grunge videos on youtube, and quite honestly DJ are a-m-a-z-i-n-g – as if there was ever any doubt.
Throw in a number of show stealer classics including Feel The Pain and Out There, and the performance gets you right under the flesh. Not least of all because they’re so loud that you can feel every finger flex of a string tickling your stomach lining. Sensational.
But then it ends. Just like that. Mascis mumbles something into the mic and then quick as you like the audience receives it’s marching orders. It’s hard not to feel cheated. Just fifteen minutes more, guys!? Pleeeeeassse!!??? But nothing. It’s kind of like experiencing an hours worth of foreplay, and then right when you think you’re gonna hit the big pay-off being instead handed your bus fare to sod off home with.
Heartbreaking.