Mascis live in London:Underworld Sept 4, 2000 live review

[OriginalPosterLost]

Just to let you know http://www.crowdsurfer.com is off to see Mascis live in London tonight (4th Sept) and will post a review of the gig tomorrow.

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[OriginalPosterLost]

As promised Crowdsurfer.com posted a review of the show:
http://www.crowdsurfer.com/index.php3?id=20000905145624

J Mascis 5th Sep 2000
Underworld, London, 4th September
RATING: 8 out of 10
VERDICT: Mascis rules. Words cannot express how good it is to have him back.

When is an acoustic guitar not an acoustic guitar? Perhaps it’s when J Mascis takes a leaf out of the Grant Lee Phillips guitar handbook and plays it through the loudest distortion pedal in Christendom, as he does many times during tonight’s solo "acoustic" set. It’s a welcome development since the last time the former Dinosaur Jr frontman played this tiny venue on the tour that spawned the live "Martin and Me" album. As good as that album turned out to be, it did lack the one thing that made Dinosaur Jr so special – pure bloody noise. No worries tonight, then.

The great man casually strolls on to the stage unannounced, sits down, says a few polite hellos to the more-than-appreciative audience and gets right on with it. The setlist is pretty much built around "Martin and Me" with a few new songs from the forthcoming J Mascis and the Fog album "More Light" and a couple of old Dinosaur favourites thrown in for good measure.

While new songs such as "Same Day" and "Waistin" sit comfortably alongside earlier mellow workouts such as "Blowin’ It" and "So What Else Is New", Mascis’ distorted soloing on the newer songs suggests that "More Light" could be a throwback to the glory days of "Bug". We can but hope.

The second half of the set sees a quick back-to-back run through of "Get Me", "Not You Again" and "Repulsion" reminding the audience what a great songwriter J Mascis is. For anybody still harbouring any doubts about this fact he later chucks in killer renditions of "The Wagon" and "Drawerings".

Sadly, but expectedly, requests for "Freakscene" are good naturedly laughed off by Mascis who, tonight, appears to be a man who has found a new lease of life back doing what he does best. If J Mascis can perform a show this good on his own with just an acoustic guitar, the full-on-plugged-in-with-drums-and-everything tour with the Fog later in the year promises to be unmissable.

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Jeremiah
"Oh, yeah, what are you gonna do?
Release the dogs?
Or the bees?
Or the dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?"
– Homer Simpson

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