Dinosaur Jr. @ The Liquid Room, 27 Aug

Remember your formative gig-going years, when your wee eardrums would take a pounding from the effrontery of live rock music? As a gig-veteran, those days are behind you, right? Not if you're lucky enough to witness the three-headed, tinnitus-inducing behemoth that is Dinosaur Jr. Perhaps J. Mascis' stack of six Marshall amps should've warned us, but we didn't take heed. Mascis wields his axe with the aplomb of any 'rock legend' you'd care to mention, Lou Barlow attacks rather than plays his bass, whilst Murph connects the two musically and, who knows, perhaps in other ways. Each successive song tonight seems to have been scientifically gauged to be one notch further up the mosh-ability scale, peaking with the inevitable Freak Scene, the audience writhing into one big sweaty climax. These days we may be spoiled for choice with all-star line-up comebacks, but this has gotta beat the shit out of The Police. [Darren Carle]