Maybe they expected a loud band. Maybe the unassuming man with waist-length silver hair sitting alone on the stage with a guitar just didn’t scratch their nostalgia itch. Whatever the reason, after an initial curiosity and respect for an old song, about half of the crowd at Alex’s Bar became a chattering bunch of boozy babblers, more interested in talking to the person next to them than listening to J Mascis play guitar and sing from the lyrics that were in a book in front of him.
Good thing Mascis brought a Shut-The-F**k-Up button in the form of a distortion pedal. It happened during “Get Me,” a song from the 1993 Dinosaur Jr. album Where You Been. Mascis had been plucking along acoustically, and the less-interested in the crowd near the back were doing their best to be louder than him, when a fuzzed-up chord detonated, and, before it could echo off the back wall, was shredded with one of Mascis’ sweet stinging solos that targets a part of the soul very few guitar players can find. Suddenly, everyone remembered why we were there, to be in the presence of greatness.
That said, Mascis sure doesn’t show off much. He kicked in the distortion only a few more times in a set that featured plenty of songs from the early ‘90s, post Lou Barlow, era of Dinosaur Jr., and used it most deftly during an encore of songs from the first two Dinosaur Jr. albums. Even though his new material is solid and should have been able to keep a room at rapt attention, most people were at this show for the rare treat to see a legend at the local bar, and Mascis’ performance was more leisurely than legendary.
For people who haven’t followed his career since Dinosaur Jr. split up in 1997, the man in the chair tenderly playing some downright pretty songs – including many classic cuts reworked from blistering howls to beautiful folksy blues – must have been a surprise. Still, they shoulda shut up.
