Live Review: Dinosaur Jr

Hot air, humid air, wet hair; chatting bodies rubbing sweaty forearms in the dark Corner Hotel with the red disco ball turning slowly. In a heatwave for the history books, we swelter. But we don't mind as we're here to see our alt.rock heroes Dinosaur Jr. And there's J Mascis, with his Mascis hair, the opposite of Fred Astaire, the long, silver-white locks, Gandolf-like, straight-as-an-arrow, protruding from a baseball cap and flinging like a wringing umbrella over a white Fender Jazzmaster.

Mascis stands and sways in the middle of three towering head-and-cabinet guitar amp stacks (something you don't see enough of these days). His mate Lou Barlow is on the bass, with a large shock of frizzy brown hair and two amp stacks of his own – it's like stone henge of guitar gear up there. And on the drums, Emmett Jefferson 'Murph' Murphy, completely bald, as if he's made a hair-deal with his band mates ('Take mine boys, you'll do good with it!'), thumping along shirtless to their opening track, The Lung. This is followed with Almost Fare from their 2012 album I Bet On Sky, with its big fuzzy chorus and poppy vocal lines. The signature guitar work and melodic brilliance of Mascis shines. He is undoubtedly one of the best guitarists of his generation; this is what we're here to see, and it bloody rocks. They tear into The Wagon and the crowd love it as the wonderfully slack Mascis peels splendidly dexterous licks off his fretboard with the ease of Pythagoras doing children's timetables.

Tonight's set features quite a number of songs from their latest album, including Watch The Corners and Rude. Not that these are badly received, but the few tracks from their '80s and '90s glory days excite the crowd most: Freak Scene, Pond Song, Start Choppin' and an absolutely stellar rendition of their cover of The Cure's Just Like Heaven during the encore. True to his amazingly vague and sedate character, Mascis barely says a word to the crowd, and we love him no less for it. The crowd claps and cheers, contentedly drenched from head to toe in the loud, golden sounds of Dinosaur Jr. as much as in our own perspiration.