All inert and living matter tends toward entropy. Soups go cold, erections turn flaccid. What once was tight, now is flab.
I present you with one shining exception: Ladies and gentlemen, Dinosaur Jr.
More than 25 years ago, this legendary trio forged a blistering brand of post-hardcore punk that blended mumbled lyrics about isolation with piercing bursts of anguished aggression, inspiring those who would later found grunge. Their music was the perfect soundtrack for the X generation’s slackerdom: frustrated and furious about the world, but too lazy and lethargic to do anything about it.
After an awkward separation from bassist Lou Barlow that lasted a decade and a half, the original lineup reunited in 2005 to record and tour again. Impressively, the three had lost neither their breathtaking originality nor their musical chops. By which I mean that they still rock.
Playing at Paris’ Trabendo club, the group peppered its set with tunes from all three of its eras: the latest incarnation reunited with the Prodigal Lou (“Crumble,” “Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know,” “Watch The Corners”); the ’90s major-label days (“The Wagon,” “Out There,” “Feel The Pain”); and its most explosive period of ’80s classics. The latter tunes—“Repulsion,” “Tarpit,” “Freak Scene,” “Sludgefeast,” an unexpected Deep Wound “cover” of “Training Ground,” an extended jam on “Forget The Swan” and the trio’s incomparable cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven”—were just as incisive and fresh as the first time your parents heard them on an SST cassette tape.
Throughout the show, J Mascis remained largely immobile, a stoner Gandalf swaying gently back and forth like a mother rocking her child to sleep. Yet these are no lullabies. Mascis continues to emit the most razor-sharp leads this side of Hendrix. As a unit, these dinosaurs reign supreme. Entropy has no purchase on the group, certainly not tonight.
Ears are split, heads are banged, asses are duly kicked.
“You’re standing,” Barlow warns the crowd between the first two songs, “right in front of a massive stack of amps.”
Yeah, no shit.
—Eric Bensel
