ode to kim gordon

Just got back from seeing Sonic Youth, as I have done umpteen times over the last fifteen years. Tonight’s show was just about right down the middle; less meandering than some, not as ferocious as others, but the most peculiar moment was realising that their name, for the first time, made complete sense. I’m probably somewhat slower and a little more padded round the girth than when I first saw the band play, but the Youth are a quartet of avant-garde Peter Pans. Thurston Moore still looks like a teenager. Lee Renaldo remains the same indeterminate age he’s always been (somewhere between 20 and 40, as far as I can tell), Steve Shelley looks, well, like Steve Shelley, and Kim Gordon… ahhh, Kim Gordon. Is it OK to find a woman approaching her half century sexy? During “Kissability” I looked round the crowd to see that it’s pretty much the same audience as the first time in 1987, just a bit older, but Kim, Kim, bouncing up and down on stage with all the youthful vigour of a teenage pop idol… you haven’t changed a bit.