Gundlach Bundschu Winery Redwood Barn
Sonoma, CA
Friday 4/12/13

The Lung
Almost Fare
In a Jar
expeditionary forces on a space foray
Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know
Watch the Corners
What Was That
Rude
Out There
Feel the Pain
Training Ground
Hand of Doom interlude
Start Choppin
Freak Scene
Forget the Swan
Just Like Heaven>
Sludgefeast

Friday night’s Dinosaur Jr show at the barn was enormous and complete. Murph played all out all night, Lou blew minds, J wailed.

We got there late and so missed The Shrine, which was a drag, as I wanted to hear them play. We got their Primitive Blast cd after the show and it’s great. They had cool merch–Shrine skate decks, hats, patches–their blotter wolf logo is classic.

Speaking of missing out, Lou apparently played a free in-store at The Last Record Store in Santa Rosa Friday evening. I buy music there but I don’t do facebook or twitter and didn’t see any advertising for it around town. A guy at the Sonoma show was there and told my friend it was awesome. I’d have liked to see Lou play solo and am sure a wonderful time was had by all.

The venue itself was really beautiful. Driving out of Sonoma we took an early left toward the hills and ended up rambling a while on an unlit country lane, hills dark, hardly any houses outside of town. Once we got to the winery a kid in a t-shirt on an ATV directed us to park in the grass near some big oak trees and a field of grapevines, then walked up a dirt road in the dark to the barn where they were taking tickets. The barn had three solid sides, with the southwest side open and looking out over the vineyards and valley. Lots of stars, an unlikely awesome place for a show; friendly staff, great venue, ultra pretty setting at night.

The barn was long and wide with a redwood slat ceiling strung with Christmas lights, a concrete floor, and a big gopher in the corner. The room acoustics were interesting with the open wall, lots of overtones and levels of sound. There were around 500 people there, maybe some just fans of the winery and their events who seemed to filter away at some point– a fun, appreciative crowd overall, interesting mix of people. Murph and Lou are amazing. J played killer great; Forget the Swan and just about everything from the encore on was huge, tons of tone, intense jams; the crowd seemed super into it. Thanks much to the band and the Gundlach Bundschu winery and crew for making a great show happen, good times.

a few pictures of the venue and show from GB winery:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150291296939970&l=fce5526ebf