In 2005, the unexpected happened. Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis and Lou Barlow buried the hatchet after several years of not speaking to each other. This led to the previously unthinkable happening – completed by Murph on drums, the band headed back into the studio. Their 2007 comeback record ‘Beyond’ was a great return.
Most people expected the reunion to be short-lived, but more albums and tours followed: ‘Farm’ was possibly even better than ‘Beyond’; ‘I Bet On Sky’ melded a rough production style with some great songs and while 2016’s ‘Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not’ could be considered the band on autopilot, it featured a classic Dinosaur sound throughout.
Better yet, the reunion has yielded a couple of official live DVDs and a couple of other pro-shot live shows, still unavailable on the retail front. Of the unavailable shows, the set from Parades De Coura in Portugal on the ‘Beyond’ tour is possibly the most fully formed, with a superb track selection including a couple of nods to the Mike Johnson years, but this festival set from Norway filmed later on the same tour captures a lot of the band’s rough ‘n’ ready charm. The vocals drop out in a few places, though this isn’t unusual considering the ear-splitting volume of J.’s guitar…