Photo credit: Levi Walton
Of all the spectacular breakups detailed in Our Band Could Be Your Life, music journalist Michael Azerrad’s seminal account of 1980s underground rock, none were more acrimonious than Dinosaur Jr.’s. In 1989, just as the group was on the cusp of signing to a major label, frontman J Mascis fired bassist Lou Barlow, who spent much of the ’90s fuming about the experience and bad-mouthing his famously apathetic former bandmate. It was more than a little surprising, then, when the band’s original lineup regrouped in 2005, for a surprisingly fruitful reunion that’s lasted far longer than their initial run and resulted in four solid, and sometimes outright great, new albums.
The band returned to Milwaukee Tuesday night for a show that was something of a consolation prize. After the band’s tour supporting Atlanta metal icons Mastodon was canceled two weeks ago due to a family emergency in that group, Dinosaur Jr. announced a last-minute headlining tour of their own. Despite the short notice, the veteran alt-rock group drew a healthy crowd at Turner Hall Ballroom, where they paid service to all eras of their discography: their celebrated ’80s records with Barlow, their Barlow-less ’90s albums for Warner Brothers, and their no-frills comeback records.
Often it was the Warner Brothers-era material that made the most impression. After all these years, it’s still vaguely surreal seeing Barlow perform songs that he disdained at the time, and gamely singing backup on “Feel The Pain,” the hit that put the band on MTV without him. It might have been tempting when he rejoined Dinosaur Jr. to just pretend their post-Barlow records never existed, but that would have been disingenuous: Mascis wrote some of his best songs during this period, and with the Barlow’s help, they popped Tuesday night. It’s no mystery why he’s so vital to the trio. He’s the member who cares most, and his passion and physicality—he’s looking trimmer and fitter than ever, muscled from years on the road—provided a necessary balance to Mascis’s beach-bum indifference.
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For his part, Mascis barely acknowledged the crowd, and instead let his guitar do most of the talking. His laconic drawl was usually drowned out by the fortress of amplifiers behind him, but his solos were pronounced and brilliant: disjointed squalls that culminated in moments of great clarity. For such an impassive performer, he’s an unusually emotional guitarist. Nobody will mistake him for one of rock’s great showmen, but his performances were no less powerful for his lack of enthusiasm.
