Digging up some Sonic Classics

North Carolina may be a long way from New York, but Sonic Youth will make it seem like you're in the heart of the Village this Saturday night.

Long known as the quintessential New York band, Sonic Youth is taking that designation up a notch on its 2000 tour. Their new repertoire leans heavily on songs from the recently released NYC Ghosts and Flowers while unearthing classics of the band's two-decade career that haven't gotten much play in the last five years.

On this tour, the band plays against a backdrop of continuous hand-held video camera shots of New York. The sights aren't spectacular; it's a stream of long, long shots of busy streets or disconnected people sitting next to each other on subways. While the visuals hardly overwhelm the music, they give it a renewed sense of brooding that makes the noise seem at home.

NYC Ghosts and Flowers combines a distinctly urban sense of personal distance with the fever of human proximity, as if everyone is in the same room, but nobody knows each other. Incredibly loose even for Sonic Youth, the songs give band members room to explore single chords, noodle with feedback or even meditate on a solitary note for awhile. Many of the lyrics are beat-esque, composed of fragmentary sentences or random words. Strange though it is, the band makes the new material work on-stage, somehow channeling the chaotic energy of the new material without the pop framework prevalent on earlier albums from Daydream Nation to 1994's Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star.

Along with the new songs, the older classics hold up as nicely as usual. "Death Valley '69," an early, obscure rocker from Bad Moon Rising, has been a typical set closer, as it was in 1998. In Washington, D.C. earlier this week, the band played old favorites like "Tom Violence," and "Cotton Crown," as well as the only song they could ever legitimately call a hit, "100%." Most of their previous two albums, 1998's A Thousand Leaves and 1995's Washing Machine have been ignored on this tour, with the sets favoring songs from 1988 and before, coupled with new material.

Part of the reason for the band's new approach-including its choice of setlists-is what band members deem an unintended inspiration: the theft of a truck full of their equipment during their last tour. Much of their recent work relied on heavily modified and unusual guitars, all of which were lost in the theft. Without the ability to re-create what they were doing for their past two albums, the band was forced to change.

In concert, the end result is dynamic. While some of the new material may leave more pop-oriented fans in the cold, the brash new material is balanced by the older, more straightforward songs. In 1998, the band seemed on autopilot at times, with a largely set repertoire of songs from their latest album sprinkled with one or two older tunes. Though they sounded great, the band looked bored. With the all-new setlists and the addition of guitarist Jim O'Rourke, today's Sonic Youth looks more energized-and sounds more innovative-han most bands half their age.

So if you make it to the Ritz this weekend, don't plan to be bored. After all, sullen detachment is something only a New Yorker can appreciate.