janradder

At their best Dinosaur jr. is a giant behemoth lurching across the aural landscape, pounding and surging like the ocean as they endlessly envelope you with waves of sonic sludge and propel you forward with them on their quest for ear-splitting mellifluous paradise. Last night there were times they reached that zenith, most especially on "I Don't Want to Go There," which they stretched from its LP-length eight minutes and forty-three seconds to something like fifteen or more, as well as "Kracked," which burned with an incendiary glory as J set fire to the very sound waves that plowed across the stage from his wall of Marshall stacks and Lou and Murph beat the last bit of life from their respective instruments.

It wasn't all great. At times they fell flat, such as on "The Wagon" which, especially paired so close to it, came across exactly as what it is -- a lukewarm rehash of "Freak Scene." For most of the night, though, we were there with them, strapped to the top of their lumbering beast, riding along and watching as they trampled through the underbrush, leaving behind a wake of smoldering ozone in the slipstream.