Feel the Pain

After a day of rain yesterday, I headed into Cambridge and was at OJ's house by 7:30 p.m. We cracked open some seasonal beers and got started with the podcast recording, running through the decade in rock music. It took us about 2.5 hours, with a few breaks and visits from Jay and Amy's super-cute baby Chloe. We jumped in Jay's car to head to the Middle East for the Dinosaur Jr. show when we realized that he only had one ticket and I had thought he bought a ticket for me. Of course, this got me doubting myself, thinking I might have actually bought one and left it at home, but my initial belief was that he bought us tickets from the club box office. We headed back to his place and he ran up to check if there was another ticket there. The show was sold out, so if there wasn't another ticket, I would just have to go home. It wouldn't have been a total waste of an evening because we recorded about four shows worth of material for the podcast, but I had been psyched for this show for a few months now.

To my relief, Jay ran out wielding a second ticket. We had originally hoped to catch Dino bassist Lou Barlow's opening set, but we got to the club just before 11 and wedged ourselves in the middle of the sold-out crowd just as the band came out. The band sounded great and of course were extremely loud, but thankfully I brought earplugs. They launched into "Bulbs of Passion" and ripped through a thoroughly excellent 90-minute set. The band played plenty of songs from their two post-reunion albums, Beyond and Farm, as well as some older selections from the first three albums they did together. There were also a few tunes from the post-Barlow albums, including "Feel the Pain" and "Get Me." As always, Mascis roared on guitar, overlaying the rhythm section with rippling solos.

There wasn't much stage banter; Mascis didn't say a word between songs, even though he sang about 90% of them, but Barlow started making some wisecracks later in the show. At first, I could barely see the top of Mascis' head and had a slightly better view of Barlow, but eventually we moved a little closer. The crowd was about 87.5% male and a little older than your average Middle East audience.

It was the second of two nights at the club and a great time. I had missed them the last few times they'd come through; I even had second row center seats at the Orpheum last time the band toured a few years ago with Built to Spill and the Meat Puppets, but had to sell them because we were out of town that weekend. So it was nice to finally feel the pain.