By Joel Francis
The Kansas City Star
There’s just no pleasing some people.
Faced with the opportunity to see the original lineup of Dinosaur Jr perform for the first time in 18 years, some morons would rather throw trash onstage and heckle the band.
Fifty minutes into the band’s set and partway into the song “Sludgefeast,” singer and guitarist J Mascis angrily knocked his mic stand over and threw his guitar to the ground while he walked offstage. The rest of the band – bass player Lou Barlow and drummer Murph – followed, leaving the audience to piece together what happened: someone hit Mascis’ mic stand while he was singing, and the microphone hit him in the mouth.
Mascis confirmed that when the trio returned a few minutes later.
“Sorry about that. I just didn’t want to lose my teeth,” he said as the band assaulted the song “Kracked,” which led into “Freak Scene,” which merged into “Chunks.”
The trio had been playing well before impromptu break in the show; when they returned to the stage, they played even louder, more aggressively and, well, better.
They soon left again. Most of the fans used this time to coax them back out for an encore; but someone started throwing trash onstage. He was escorted out.
After two rushed numbers, including a cover of “Just Like Heaven,” Dinosar Jr left for good. They had been onstage for 75 minutes.
The evening started more promisingly. After nearly two decades of fighting and bitterness, all seemed forgiven and forgotten when Barlow and Mascis traded stanzas on the opening number, “Gargoyle.”_The band and its material, which drew almost exclusively from its first three albums, sounded astonishingly fresh, especially when they stretched out on “Forget the Swan” and “Bulbs of Passion.”
The unlikelihood of this reunion was not lost on the crowd, many of whom were too young to have seen the band the first time around. The show wasn’t sold out, but almost everyone seemed delighted and appreciative of anything played for them – almost everyone. It’s a shame a couple jerks had to interrupt the evening for everyone.
Setlist: Gargoyle, Tarpit, No Bones, the Wagon, Forget the Swan, Bulbs of Passion, the Lung, Little Furry Things, Lose, In A Jar, Sludgefeast (aborted), Kracked, Freak Scene, Chunks. Encore: Just Like Heaven (The Cure cover), Mountain Man
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