Forget The Swan, Here's Dinosaur!

Last Monday (May 28), Dinosaur Jr blew into Winnipeg to assault our senses and hearing, this was the first show that I have ever worn earplugs, I guess I should try to avoid permanent hearing damage. To be honest I loosened the plugs throughout the show to let in more of the sonic sludgefest of earsplitting fuzz unleashed by the incredible J Mascis and to feel first hand the definition of the word, power-trio. J swayed almost trance-like in front of his 3 massive Marshall stacks feeling the buzz.

The show was led off by Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr's bassist) who treated the early comers to a solo acoustic set with just him and guitar. Barlow's mellow set was a direct contrast to what was to come and he quickly warmed to the audience with a mix of solo material and Sebadoh songs.

Brooklyn's (via Ann Arbor) Awesome Color showed they can shred with the best of them with a energetic and noisy set of heavy feedback driven garage-rock. Drummer Allison Busch pounded the shit out of her drums and guitarist Derek Stanton blasted out wild guitar freakouts. Their closing song was highlighted by Stanton's crazy guitar antics, kicking and banging his guitar to a wall of fuzzed out mayhem, climaxed when Stanton handed his guitar to audience members to continue to slam and smack. The set was abruptly halted to a stop when the drummer lunged through her drums to stop a fan from smashing the guitar. What Awesome Color lacked musically was more than made up with their presence and enthusiasm.

The mere presence of Dinosaur Jr back together wasn't just a money-grabbing reunion, nor was it only for nostalgic purposes, in fact I think they sounded better than ever. Their setlist was a good indication they were proud and confident of their new material and weren't just going to play old songs. The early JayLouMurph period was highlighted by Forget The Swan, Little Fury Things, Sludge Fest, Freak Scene and show closer, Mountain Man. They even performed a few songs from the post-Barlow years, Out There, Feel The Pain and Wagon. Dinosaur Jr played 6 songs from the new album (Rob Williams of the Winnipeg Free Press counted only 4), as their new material from their comeback disc, Beyond, sounded great intermixed with Dinosaur Jr classics from throughout their career. These songs stood their ground and were not filler designed to provide bathroom breaks throughout the show.

All in all it was an incredible show, I ended up attending alone as I tried to sell my extra ticket outside the door, but found no takers on this rainy evening. It was still worth the $62 ($27 +$27 as well as all those Ticketmaster charges $4 +$4), I could of paid at least 2x that amount to see Clapton or Meyer wank at the MTS Centre in nose bleed seats, or instead witness along with 700 other people, the original lineup of Dinosaur Jr at the intimate Garrick, I guess it's a matter of taste.

I spend a good part of the last few evening uploading and creating torrents to seed for the Dinosaur Jr, Awesome Color and Lou Barlow sets on dimeadozen.org. The DJ and LB sets are also archived on freesofree.net and can be assessed anytime (you'll need to register on both sites). I've posted a sampling of the show.

Audience recording (my master)
"Garrick Centre"-Winnipeg, MB
May 28, 2007

DINOSAUR JR
(entire set: Dimeadozen & Freesofree)
Almost Ready
Out There
Little Fury Things
Wagon
Freak Scene
Mountain Man

LOU BARLOW
(entire set: Dimeadozen & Freesofree)
Freed Pig
Brand New Love

AWESOME COLOR
(entire set: Dimeadozen)
? (last song jam, don't know the name)

I think I finally got the song files to work! Let me know if you still have problems playing these mp3's.
Enjoy!