Dinosaur Jr., Dead Confederate @ Black Cat [11/27/07]

Know I'm a little late on this, but wanted to do a real quick wrapup of the Dinosaur Jr. show at the Black Cat the other night.

First off, let me repeat what I said the other night -- Dead Confederate are incredible. I'd heard good things about them prior to the show, and had meant to catch their show at The Red and The Black a month or so ago, but for one reason or another kept missing them.

Simply put, they blew me away. They're loud, they're tight, they've got great songs, and their live show is amazing. If you want proof, check out this set they did for KEXP a couple of months ago. (I can't find a link on the KEXP site itself, otherwise I'd post that link directly. That said, if you haven't subscribed already, be sure to sign up for KEXP's podcast series, and definitely check out Thurston Moore's fantastic recent set.)

The band is scheduled to start recording their debut LP in January. For now, I can't recommend their EP enough.




As for Dinosaur Jr., they were pretty fantastic as well. This was, I think, the fourth time I've seen them since they reunited two years ago, and it was one of the best. This was the first time that I remembered to actually bring ear plugs with me, and it's a good thing I did -- I could barely tell I was wearing them. I can only imagine how loud it would have been without them.

The set list was essentially the same that they've been playing since releasing Beyond earlier this year, i.e., switching back and forth from new song to old song. While it's still weird to see Lou play them, I'm thrilled that they've added "Out There" and "Feel the Pain" into the set. Sadly, I had to skip out before the encore in order to make the last Metro of the night (friggin' D.C.), so I missed "Freak Scene", "Tarpit" and "Chunks" (or at least that's what the setlist said).

My pics from the Dino set were pretty unspectacular, so here's a video of the band playing "Tarpit" instead:



Oh, and Awesome Color were the second opener. My friend Matt really liked them, and I'll admit they were a pretty fierce trio, but there are only a couple bands who can do the "1 riff for 6 minutes straight" thing, and Awesome Color isn't one of them. (For future reference - The Stooges and Mudhoney.)