Live Review: Dinosaur Jr

Hot, damn hot! That's how the masses at The Gov felt on this humid Adelaide night. A storm just ripped through Adelaide an hour prior to Dinosaur Jr's set and a distorted alternative fuzzy rock storm hit the stage with Dinosaur Jr.

It's crazy to think the Massachusetts three-piece first released an album back in 1985 when alternate rock WAS alternate rock. Now it's just part of the mainstream. The band hit the stage with Emmett "Murph" Murphy back on skins, after he didn't quite make it into the country for their first show, and leisurely broke into The Lung from their second album, You're Living All Over Me. We're sure drummer Kyle Spence was a more than able fill in, but Murph pounded the hell out of those drums. Good start! After a guitar tune by frontman J Mascis - it wasn't the last and became a habit - the band belted into Goin Down from 2016's Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, which is a good return to that '90s sound they are famous for. Apparently the '90s are cool again. Will the kids of today back me up?

The crowd was lively and each song got a roar. But as a band with a ten-plus album discography, it must be easy to pick a set-list amongst the gold in your catalogue. The crowd were also too happy to part with their cold hard cash for the new purple cow T-shirts and there seemed to be a sea of them. We'd be interested to know the percentage that remained white by the end of the night as it was a sweat box inside.

Next song, once again a guitar change and Mascis tunes his guitar out loud! Who needs a guitar tech when you can do in between each song?! This kind of got annoying; the band could've easily snuck another song into their set with all the time wasting. You pay a guitar tech, use him! Anywho…

The song with the biggest cheer was of course big hit Feel The Pain. It still sounds as fresh today as when it first hit triple j way back in 1994. The band seemed to play it a little faster than the original studio version, but it still sounded great. Mascis showed he has not lost the trademark croaky voice that made Dinosaur Jr so unique in the '90s. And bassist Lou Barlow happily bopped around - as he did the whole gig - his side of the stage with his shaggy curls flying. The crowd pogoed away much to the dismay of one bouncer who tried in vain to stop the mini mosh that was happening.

While Mascis basically said nothing to the crowd the whole night, you could feel the band step it up a notch as though he was enjoying himself. It certainly wasn't showing on his face, but deep down you could tell he was. They finished off the main set with I Walk For Miles and then returned for a request. A lucky punter had Freak Scene played for them and then they concluded their deliciously distorted fuzzy rock set with Gargoyle.