Sonic Youth Members Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley Deliver Rare Performance in New York

Three members of Sonic Youth reunited last Friday, December 5, for an ultra-rare performance at The Stone in New York City. The event was originally billed as an event for Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, specifically. However, during the intimate set, the two artists brought out Steve Shelley for a semi-complete Sonic Youth set. Kim Gordon was notably absent from the performance, which featured a mostly improvised noise-rock set.

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It wasn’t a bad set, either. The three musicians moved fluidly through low, brooding instrumentation to a larger-than-life climactic ending, complete with a whirlwind of guitars and cymbals.

You can watch part of the performance below:

Moore had a few other performances at The Stone as well. He performed with several guest musicians, from Wobbly to Fred Frith to others. Moore also released a solo album last September titled Flow Critical Lucidity. The album release followed the publishing of his autobiography, Sonic Life: A Memoir.

The rare performance comes over a year after Moore announced that he was diagnosed with a serious health condition. Though, he said in an interview that followed that he was doing “very good”.

Why Didn’t Kim Gordon Appear at the Rare Sonic Youth Performance?

Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore were at the heart of Sonic Youth. While the band has seen members come and go, Gordon, Moore, Ranaldo, and Shelley were in the band for the longest amount of time together. 

The iconic grunge band behind albums like Goo and Dirty officially broke up back in 2011. The dissolution came after the divorce between Gordon and Moore, allegedly after Moore’s infidelity. The band members have since asserted that they will not get back together and that Sonic Youth is done for good.

So, it’s pretty obvious why Gordon wasn’t on stage with the other three former Sonic Youth members at Friday night’s set in New York. Rather than staging a semi-complete Sonic Youth reunion, it appears that the set was mostly just supposed to be old friends making noise together on a rare public occasion. 

That same night, though, Kim Gordon did deliver an incredible set in Los Angeles with Dinosaur Jr.

RIP, Sonic Youth.

Photo by Giotas, Courtesy Riot Act Media

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