Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt: A match made in hell
Sonic Youth touring with Lightning Bolt sounds like a no-brainer on the surface.
The ideal opener/headliner combo is that whoever the headliner is, their opener should be a less established, more boundary-pushing version of that. Think Pearl Jam opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse in the early 1990s. Think The Vaselines opening for Nirvana. Think Arctic Monkeys opening for The Black Keys in American arenas in the early days of touring for AM. Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt take that setup and go to absolutely ballistic places with it.
After all, Sonic Youth are hardly The Black Keys. They’re one of the most respected, forward-thinking and beloved bands in the history of American indie rock. Before Nirvana took grunge into the mainstream, they were the band tipped to take college rock into a (far, far more intimate) place in the pop charts with their mix of delicious pop hooks and abrasive guitars. Lightning Bolt, on the other hand, have absolutely no place in the mainstream and more power to them for that.
Listening to Lightning Bolt can feel like standing too close to a hundred cannons going off at once. An explosion of hair-raising noise shot through with frantic, distorted bass riffage and vocalist Brian Chippendale screeching into the microphone stuffed into his gimp mask. At their lightest, they make The Youth at their most ferocious sound like The Carpenters, so the news that the two bands were going to tour together in 2002 seemed like a match made in heaven.
Trust both bands to find a way of thoroughly confusing their fanbases, though.
Why was Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt’s tour so weird?
When the news broke via tour posters being released to the press, Lightning Bolt seemingly topped the bill. This was absolutely baffling as Sonic Youth were… Well, Sonic Youth. To call Lightning Bolt a cult band oversells it. In 2002, they were little more than a curio with a white-hot reputation as a terrifying live band. Were the mighty Sonic Youth really going to open for these greenhorns? The truth was yes… Kind of.
People really familiar with Lightning Bolt probably could have seen the whole thing coming. Since the band were a two-piece, Chippendale on drums and vocals, Brian Gibson on bass, half the band’s gigs took place away from the clubs and bars they could fill. The other half were little more than guerrilla gigs. The duo setting up somewhere bizarre and blowing the minds (and eardrums) of anyone lucky enough (or let’s be real here, unlucky enough in most cases) to get caught in the audio crossfire.
The shows with Sonic Youth would be a mix of both. Sure, they would take place in rock clubs like New York City‘s beloved Irving Plaza, but Lightning Bolt wouldn’t be playing on stage. Oh no. The moment Sonic Youth’s final chords would ring out, an almighty thrash of noise would assault the audience from behind, and Lightning Bolt would reveal themselves, having set up behind the audience while they were distracted by the headline act.
Lightning Bolt’s “supporting slot” would close out the night, but in true Sonic Youth fashion, it would take place as one final surprise of the night, with The Youth’s crowd making their way out of the venue, careful to step around Lightning Bolt in full flight. I’m sure more than a few of them stopped to watch, though, entranced by the sheer visceral noise on offer. In all, there were married couples that were worse fits for each other than Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt were in 2002.
In fact, a decade later, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon would prove that fact themselves.