Sunny Day Real Estate
Live
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Sunny Day Real Estate
Live
Sub Pop, 1999
RiYL: U2, Jane’s Addiction, Fugazi, Chamberlain, Jawbox |
Thus, it's a bit disappointing that Sunny Day Real Estate Live, the pioneering hardcore band's final album under contract for Sub Pop, offers such few surprises. The 11 tracks, taped in Eugene, Oregon, in May of '99, are plowed through in workmanlike fashion, with little or no stage banter from frontman Jeremy Enigk and precious little variation from the songs' studio versions.
Its lack of spontaneity aside, avid fans will still want to pick up Live, because there is certainly no shortage of musical intensity here. The barely audible crowd noise lends the performance an intimacy missing from most live albums, amplifying the power of Enigk's passionate wails. Although songs from the band's 1998 reunion album How It Feels To Be Something On such as "Every Shining Time You Arrive" and "Pillars" translate best in a concert setting, renditions of classic older tracks such as "In Circles" and "Song About An Angel" stand up just as well.
Enigk's translucent vocals power solemn closer "Days Were Golden," while his high-register yearnings on the rumbling "The Prophet" bridge the gap between White Album-era Beatles and U2. The band locks into a deadly groove halfway through "Rodeo Jones," one of many SDRE tracks that helped lay the foundation for the craze of emotional hardcore bands that followed the band's initial 1995 breakup.
One could grumble about the song selection (how about "Theo B," "Seven," or even the title track of Something?), but actually this show sports a number of tracks that were not in the setlist earlier in the tour. So ultimately, Live is no-frills, fist-clenched rock that will be essential to diehards but of minimal interest to newcomers.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"