Thurston Moore Group at Zebulon

Photo Credit: Deb Frazin

Anyone who knows me well knows I’ve always been a huge fan of Sonic Youth. I’ve seen them many times over the past few decades, and always bought as many recordings as I could get my hands on. When Sonic Youth broke up, I was sad, but I wasn’t devastated. I was disappointed in the final two albums, and thought it was probably time for them to throw in the towel.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen Thurston Moore play live. I was blown away by his latest album “Rock and Roll Consciousness”, and when I heard he was playing at Zebulon, I knew I had to jump on the opportunity to see The Thurston Moore Group at a small club.

And what a show it was! The first band up was The Renderers. I got there late, and only heard the last two songs, but they sounded great. Next up was Rogue Squares. The lights were turned way down, Carlos Giffoni and Elaine Carey walked onstage, and proceeded to blow everyone’s minds with a loud wall of beautiful noise. I can’t really describe it – just two people making loud, crazy, beautiful noise. When they finished, the lights went up, and everyone looked at each other in amazement. The crowd loved it, and personally, I cannot wait to go see them again.

Finally, James Sedwards on guitar, Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) on drums, and Thurston Moore (with about 6 guitars) hit the stage, and just KILL IT! I was right up front, so I was able to see it all. I loved watching James and Thurston play off of each other, watching their fingers play every note on their frets, watched Thurston make all that exquisite noise with his guitar plug, and throughout it all, Debbie and Steve are going crazy on bass and drums. They played lots of songs from the last album (if you don’t have this album, do yourself a big favor and buy it asap), and ended with “Psychic Hearts”. What an absolutely outstanding show. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day today.

It’s started raining pretty hard when they first hit the stage, and the rain had ended just as they left the stage. Somehow, that just seemed fitting to me.