Got there early, stood in the line. When the doors opened, I strolled in, then walked as fast as I could to the beer counter. It would be my only chance to get one, if I wanted to get and keep a spot at the front of the stage. Which I did. So, beer in hand, camera around neck, I walked over to the spot where J Mascis would be standing. Then I took a better look and saw this:

That little amp in the front was for the opening act. The rest of it was for J. Three full stacks and a small combo at head-level pointing back towards the center of the semi-circle (left, on top of those cases). I said, "no fucking way am I standing in front of that", and went to the other side of the stage, to stand in front of Lou Barlow's relatively-less-intimidating bass stack:

Then, Mac McCaughan, record company mogul and frontman for Superchunk came out and did a set. Just him and his electric guitar.

I didn't recognize all of the songs, but those I did were Superchunk songs ("Tie A Rope...", "Driveway to Driveway", etc.). He threw in what I think was a Black Flag song, too. But I don't know much Black Flag, and I haven't been able to figure out which song it was. His set was hit and miss - and to be fair, he said it was kind of an unusual set up for him. Some of those Superchunk songs just seemed really thin without the rest of the band, other songs, though, worked really well ("Driveway To Driveway", especially). Fun to see him do the songs, anyway.

Then Henry Rollins came out for a 15-ish minute interview with the guys in Dino Jr..

They talked a lot about Dino Jr's formation and early years, about how they handled their success, etc.. Interesting stuff, if you're interested in the kind of stuff. I am. No good pics, was in the worst possible spot for this part.

Then, Dino Jr played "Forget The Swan" and "In a Jar", as warm-ups. Then they played all of Bug - an album they released in 1988, the year I graduated high school. Ugh.

It was loud. Very loud. But my ear plugs did their job and I survived. I was leaning on one of the Cat's Cradle's huge floor-level bass speakers, and every single bass drum hit would push a giant wall of air between my legs. Luckily, the speaker was only 3 feet tall, so my head didn't have to deal with that. My knees didn't mind. It was a bit like standing thigh-deep in the ocean, while the waves whoosh past.

J. Mascis stood in his little alcove of speakers, looking a lot like Saruman's brother. He rocked out a bit here and there, but basically took it easy. His vocals were hard to hear, as vocal always are, up front. But what I could hear sounded good.
On the other side of the stage, though, Lou Barlow (bass) and Murph (drums) were rocking. Constant action.

Somehow, I never really appreciated how awesome those two are. Even though they played the same stuff they played on the record, watching them do it live gave me a whole new perspective on their contributions to the Dino Jr sound. I'd always focused on J's guitar and vocals, regarding the other two as just the base sludge in those muddy mixes. But live, wow. Loud, fast, tight, intricate. Whew. I'm glad I stood on that side.

The last song on Bug is "Don't", which is nearly six minutes of grinding noise, feedback and Lou Barlow shouting "Why? Why don't you like me?" Lou said he'd wrecked his voice and couldn't do that much screaming, so he picked up two mics and invited two people from the crowd to come up and do the screaming on an extended "Don't". The two turned into three, then four, as other people wanted to get in on the fun. (That "Whyyyyy? Why don't you LIKE MEeeee?" sounded a little different, given that half the people in the crowd were checking their Facebook status at any given time) Then one mic went into the crowd and another half-dozen joined in. Luckily, it wasn't as horrid as it sounds. It was actually fun and J did a long, wailing, echo-filled solo over the top of it all.

Mucho blast.

I left after "Don't". They were clearly going to do some encore stuff, but I had to get home. 6:30AM comes too early even on normal days.

Some jackass in a Porsche kept trying to get me to race him the whole 35 minute drive home - slow down, wait for me, gun it when I get close; let me pass on the four-lane roads then blow by me when the road looks clear ahead. No, fool, I'm not going to risk a ticket just so you can verify that your 911 can beat my 2 liter Audi. Yes, I know it makes a cool sound when you step on the gas. Yes, that's very impressive. Don't make me have to pull over and call the police when you flip that thing into the lake. I got to get home. I have some sleeping to do.