Dinosaur Jr

The 2009-2010 live season at the renowned New Age officially opens on September 12, with a performance by the legendary Dinosaur Jr.

There have been quite a few Italian shows by the Massachusetts trio, at least over the last 4 years, the period of their latest reunion with the original Mascis-Barlow-Murph line-up (which has already produced two albums, "Beyond" and the recent "Farm"), but it's still significant that the Roncade venue kicks off its new season with a band of such international standing.

The crowd is already packed at the entrance right after dinner. Inside, the venue is as welcoming as ever, buoyed by that typical end-of-summer-holidays atmosphere, with an eager audience and cameras already crowding the edges of the stage.

Opening the evening is Bob Corn's entirely acoustic set, a stark contrast to the electric blasts of the headliners right from the staging: the diminutive Tiziano "Tizio" Sgarbi, sitting alone with just an acoustic guitar, backed by the imposing wall of amplifiers set up for Mascis and co.'s upcoming performance. Still, the New Age crowd gives the songwriter's fragile, warm guitar-and-voice songs a genuinely warm welcome.

Dinosaur Jr then take the stage with a feverish impact, already ruling the venue before even striking a note. The sound pouring out of "Thumb" is nothing short of proverbial, the very quintessence of the band's aesthetic: booming, gritty, yet loaded with neurosis. The chosen opener, one of the masterpieces from "Green Mind", thus serves as a double test: the crowd's emotional reaction (an essential element of any live show worth its salt) and the solidity of a sound that remains one of the most significant of the 80s-90s transition.

Mascis isn't the only one shaping the band's signature sound; the rhythm section, with Barlow truly on top form and Murph occasionally explosive, often steals the show too. Tracks like "Wagon", "In A Jar", "Feel The Pain" and "Get Me" prove as much. It's Lou Barlow himself who engages with the crowd, introduces the band (as if it were even necessary), and points, almost prophetically, toward the group's present and perhaps future direction, namely "Farm", which yields "Pieces", "Over It", "Imagination Blind" and "I Don't Wanna Go There" — certainly a notch below the classics, but revitalized here and imbued with that same spirit of instrumental power (fueled above all by J Mascis's flowing, ultrasonic guitar work).

This, perhaps, is precisely the secret or the correct way to read Dinosaur Jr in 2009 (and also a metonym for all the countless reunions of recent years): a band now indifferent to rock-history laurels, and now even more charged with the moving naivety of simple, hot-blooded rockers.

Closing out the set, before and after the encore respectively, are more gems from their classic albums: "Freak Scene", stretched out to epic length by Mascis and by the pyrotechnic closing jam, "Little Fury Things" and the splendid "Raisans".

The devastating impact and magnetic stage presence are here and there tempered by a certain weariness (especially in the vocals) and by the almost ostentatious solemnity of Mascis's poses — part Neil Young, part Eastern guru — as if he were striking the pose of a wise man who gathers old and new generations within himself. Yet this conviction, a prophecy that in the end fulfilled itself, has always been the band's trademark. And the newly rediscovered second-in-command Barlow is the crowning touch of an adventure that still shows no sign of ending, a fresh validation of the charisma of an indestructible band.

(technical and photographic contributions by David Prando and Roberto Olivotto)

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