Live In Brooklyn 2011

When Sonic Youth played their last U.S. show in August 2011 at Brooklyns Williamsburg Waterfront, they made it count. Though theyd stop playing for good just a few months later, their chemistry on Live in Brooklyn 2011 is as electrifying as ever. Anyone fortunate enough to experience a Sonic Youth concert knows that even at the peak of their mainstream popularity, they always put at least a few rarities on the set list. This time, they spend most of the show revisiting their earliest, noisiest days in the underground. By avoiding the "Teenage Riot"s and "Kool Thing"s of their songbook, they subvert expectations -- the best way for them to honor the essence of their music. Based on the set list, it could be assumed that Bad Moon Rising was their biggest hit; nearly a third of Live in Brooklyn 2011s songs are dreamy noise-scapes from that 1985 album. "We decided to go super deep, so its been a while since weve played some of these f*ckers," Thurston Moore says mid-concert, but theres not a speck of dust on them. The band throws the audience into a quintessentially Sonic Youth noise jam barely three minutes into the triumphant opener "Brave Men Run in My Family," and reaches skyscraping heights on an ecstatic version of "Death Valley 69" that Kim Gordon punctuates with a piercing whoop. The immediacy they bring to these songs and the sprawling, feral finale "Inhuman" (from 1983s Confusion Is Sex) captures what made them great far better than an obligatory run-through of their best-known songs would have. Similarly, Live in Brooklyn 2011s performances are a testament to the consistency of Sonic Youths body of work. "Starfield Road," from 1994s often-dismissed Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, sounds just as gripping as "Erics Trip," "Tom Violence," or "Sugar Kane," the closest the album comes to delivering one of the groups obvious live favorites. On every song, theres a fire and liberation in Sonic Youths playing that shows, despite the tension within the band at the time, they could still come together to make thrilling music. The Williamsburg Waterfront show might not have been the concert that was expected, but it was the concert that was needed: Live in Brooklyn 2011 is a stunning document of a veteran band challenging received wisdom and thriving in the excitement of rediscovery. ~ Heather Phares