Last Friday, I had the pleasure of witnessing my favorite band, Dinosaur Jr., perform to a packed crowd in Riley Commons. The last time I saw the band, they put on an awesome show at Yale, but much to my friends and my amazement, they rocked WPI harder than we ever imagined possible. The crowd was a good mix of "techies" and local die hard Dino Fans. I actually made friends with a couple of guys from Brown that were at the last show I went to and were planning on going to Saturday's show at Lupo's in Providence. The band doesn't have the popularity or air-play of bands like Pearl Jam or Aerosmith, but who needs that when you can sell out small clubs across the country with dedicated and addicted fans.
Their set consisted of 12 songs off almost every one of their albums keeping all their fans happy. It's hard for me to distinguish now what songs were the best because they all were amazing. J Mascis belted out some crazy guitar solos which left no question of why he is known as a "Guitar God". Some of the highlights of the set were, "Little Furry Things off" Your Living All Over Me and "Mick" off their latest Hand it over. The best part of the show however was the two song encore. The first song was a cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven", which is on the album Fossils. The second was on of my favorite Dino Jr. songs, "Freakscene", off one of their first albums Bug. "Freakscene" has the most memorable lyrics out of all of their songs, "I've seen enough to eye you, but I've seen to much to try you...Sometimes I don't thrill you, Sometimes I think I'll kill you, But don't let me f*ck up will you, Cause when I need a friend its still you...What a mess." I don't think there was a better way to end the show.