Live Review: J Mascis, Adalita

A couple of months shy of 20 years ago – on March 31, 1995 to be precise – American alternative behemoth Dinosaur Jr rocked the much-missed Brisbane Festival Hall, supported by fiery Melbourne up-and-comers Magic Dirt, who at that stage only had a couple of well-received EPs to their name.

It was a fine night of rock’n’roll, loud and furious as was the wont back in the day. Fast forward to the present and tonight the creative forces and voices behind those two fine acts are reunited once more, no doubt older but also hopefully somewhat wiser for the passing of time.

Adalita is now a few years into her solo foray and the format still suits her wonderfully, her emotive voice resonating with rich timbre as she opens with the moving Invite Me. She resonates a worldly persona – a perceived wisdom radiated by her stately demeanour rather than words – and she carries on with gorgeous numbers I Want Your Love and Trust Is Rust. She now favours lots of space where once would have lived squalls of feedback, but she changes moods subtly with shifts in her singing range and subtle loops which augment her deft guitar playing. On Hot Air she builds a cool soundscape which she then drags out and extends for ages, finishing a strong opening gambit with the beautiful and uplifting Blue Sky.

After a short break the wonderfully grey-maned J Mascis enters the fray – wearing his seemingly obligatory truckers’ cap – and takes a seat, opening with the languid Listen To Me. His voice is so distinctive and that trademark warble so unique, as he moves through Me Again (from last year’s Tied To A Star album) and old Dinosaur Jr number Little Fury Things, during which the distortion pedal gets smashed for the first time bringing a wall of static-like noise which breaks things up wonderfully. It’s still cool seeing Mascis utlising restraint after years of watching him dwarfed by stacks of Marshalls amps, even though he shows his virtuosity via huge guitar squalls during Amarring (a song by his old band The Fog).

The intricate and up-tempo Every Morning brings an almost country twang, before Stumble segues into the evergreen Dinosaur classic Get Me, which has lost none of its power or poignancy. The bluesy instrumental Drifter rolls into the powerful Heal The Star, complete with huge bombastic outro, before a pair of tracks from Dino’s 1992 album Where You Been – Not The Same and the plaintive Out There – lead into a positively beautiful rendition of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You. A couple more songs from his old band – Pond Song and soaring b-side Not You Again – close the main set, before he shuffles back out to conclude with another glorious cover, this time in the form of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven. Age shall not weary them.