Dinosaur Jr. @ Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC June 27
Dinosaur Jr., perhaps the loudest non-metal band on earth, decided to do a tour playing their arguably most-noted album, “Bug” in it’s entirety. An odd yet intriguing additive to the tour was that they were to bring along Henry Rollins with them, not performing, really, but to interview the band onstage, before they play. So, on Monday, June 27 Carrboro’s own Cat’s Cradle was filled up with hipsters and music geeks, ready and willing to get their eardrums blown. I was sad to see that this date, unlike the other dates of this tour, did not include OFF!, Keith Morris of Black Flag and Circle Jerks new band, but was happy to see that Mac McCaughn of Superchunk would be opening the show. Being a Chapel Hill native, McCaughn would be at home at The Cradle, but being one of the only times playing solo, it seemed to be a new experience for him. Surprisingly, he did not play an acoustic set, but played Superchunk songs just as loud and distorted as if he was playing with the band, something that took a few songs to get used to, but eventually felt right. He played a slew of Superchunk songs such as “Driveway to Driveway”, “Digging For Something”, and “Martinis on The Roof”, and threw in a cover of The Misfits song “Children in Heat”, which he dedicated to Rollins' tattoos.
After McCaughn finished up his set, Rollins came on stage to say a few words before introducing Dinosaur Jr. When the band came out and the interview started rolling, I couldn’t help wonder what the purpose of all this was. It just seemed odd, that a guy like J Mascus, that had seemed to be pretty soft spoken and mysterious (or maybe just too stoned to talk much) would want to be interviewed on stage. But nonetheless, it was entertaining. No questions were particularly hard-hitting or controversial, although one statement that Rollins made about how some bands get together after years of being broken up, and don’t really do anything new, but DJ has been creating new music, sparked Lou Barlow to grunt “THE PIXIES”, which of course was good for a “oh no he didn’t” moment.
After the interview was over, DJ left the stage for a few minutes. Looking up at the stage, I noticed there were so many amps, that there was barely any room for the drum kit. I took this as a cue to insert my earplugs. They opened the set with two non- “Bug” songs: “Forget The Swan” (from their first album, “Dinosaur”), and “In a Jar” (from their second album, “You’re Living All Over Me”. Then played “Bug”, all songs in order of album. For the last song, “Don’t”, Barlow invited audience members up to scream the lyrics, which of course are just “why don’t you like me” over and over. For their encore, they played their version of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” and “Tarpit”, another song from “You’re Living All Over Me”.
As the night ended, most left happy, and happier were those who remembered to wear earplugs.
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