Sonic Youth played what stands as their final North American concert in Brooklyn on August 12, 2011, and will now release the recording as a new live album.
The newly remixed and remastered Live in Brooklyn 2011 arrives August 18 on vinyl, CD and cassette via Silver Current Records, and digitally via Goofin'.
The band's 17-song performance on the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn has become known as "The Last Show" by fans and Sonic Youth alike. You can hear the set's first two tracks, "Brave Men Run (In My Family)" and "Death Valley '69" in the player below.
"The stage was facing the East River from the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront, and I recall the sun going down in the west during our set," Lee Ranaldo recalled of the concert in a statement. "It was a pretty magical, if kinda weird day. Fitting, somehow, that our 'last show' should be in New York City, our home and where it all began."
Steve Shelley expanded on the Live in Brooklyn 2011 setlist as follows:
This show was a culmination of a run of really special outdoor summertime shows in New York City for us, starting in '92 with Summerstage in Central Park when we played with Sun Ra. For the Williamsburg Waterfront show I wrote out the set list to present to the band and it was a lot of material we hadn't played in a while, a lot of deep cuts, so I wasn't sure if everybody would feel like doing it. After worrying about which songs the band might say yes or no to, I threw those concerns out the window and I just made a list of songs that I thought would be a great set. We practiced the week of the show at our space in Hoboken and put the set together. First we'd try and make sure we had a guitar in the song's tuning, then we'd try to remember the arrangement and try and put it together, sometimes re-learning bar by bar. In the end I think the whole song list made it through. Even as early as '86 and '87 we stopped playing 'Death Valley 69' and 'Brave Men Run' with any regularity. We'd just get excited about new material coming into the set and songs would get 'retired' and wouldn't get played again for years. So on this particular night in Brooklyn a lot of those retired songs and deep cuts got dusted off and played for this show. It turned out to be a pretty special event with a really special song list
Live in Brooklyn 2011 arrives following April's Live in Kyiv, Ukraine 1989 release.
Pre-order Live in Brooklyn 2011.
Live in Brooklyn 2011:
1. Brave Men Run (In My Family)
2. Death Valley '69
3. Kotton Krown
4. Kill Yr Idols
5. Eric's Trip
6. Sacred Trickster
7. Calming the Snake
8. Starfield Road
9. I Love Her All the Time
10. Ghost Bitch
11. Tom Violence
12. What We Know
13. Drunken Butterfly
14. Flower
15. Sugar Kane
16. Psychic Hearts
17. Inhuman
The newly remixed and remastered Live in Brooklyn 2011 arrives August 18 on vinyl, CD and cassette via Silver Current Records, and digitally via Goofin'.
The band's 17-song performance on the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn has become known as "The Last Show" by fans and Sonic Youth alike. You can hear the set's first two tracks, "Brave Men Run (In My Family)" and "Death Valley '69" in the player below.
"The stage was facing the East River from the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront, and I recall the sun going down in the west during our set," Lee Ranaldo recalled of the concert in a statement. "It was a pretty magical, if kinda weird day. Fitting, somehow, that our 'last show' should be in New York City, our home and where it all began."
Steve Shelley expanded on the Live in Brooklyn 2011 setlist as follows:
This show was a culmination of a run of really special outdoor summertime shows in New York City for us, starting in '92 with Summerstage in Central Park when we played with Sun Ra. For the Williamsburg Waterfront show I wrote out the set list to present to the band and it was a lot of material we hadn't played in a while, a lot of deep cuts, so I wasn't sure if everybody would feel like doing it. After worrying about which songs the band might say yes or no to, I threw those concerns out the window and I just made a list of songs that I thought would be a great set. We practiced the week of the show at our space in Hoboken and put the set together. First we'd try and make sure we had a guitar in the song's tuning, then we'd try to remember the arrangement and try and put it together, sometimes re-learning bar by bar. In the end I think the whole song list made it through. Even as early as '86 and '87 we stopped playing 'Death Valley 69' and 'Brave Men Run' with any regularity. We'd just get excited about new material coming into the set and songs would get 'retired' and wouldn't get played again for years. So on this particular night in Brooklyn a lot of those retired songs and deep cuts got dusted off and played for this show. It turned out to be a pretty special event with a really special song list
Live in Brooklyn 2011 arrives following April's Live in Kyiv, Ukraine 1989 release.
Pre-order Live in Brooklyn 2011.
Live in Brooklyn 2011:
1. Brave Men Run (In My Family)
2. Death Valley '69
3. Kotton Krown
4. Kill Yr Idols
5. Eric's Trip
6. Sacred Trickster
7. Calming the Snake
8. Starfield Road
9. I Love Her All the Time
10. Ghost Bitch
11. Tom Violence
12. What We Know
13. Drunken Butterfly
14. Flower
15. Sugar Kane
16. Psychic Hearts
17. Inhuman