Free at Noon Flashback: The Dream Syndicate fills the room with their familiar fuzzy rock

The Dream Syndicate | photo by Emily DeHart for WXPN | dehartvisuals.com

Listening to The Dream Syndicate, you’d hardly know that this is a band that spent nearly 30 years not releasing music. But in the last two years alone, the 80’s rockers have more than made up for lost time, releasing their first two albums since 1988’s Ghost Stories. Their latest, These Times, is out now, and the The Los Angeles band joined us for today’s Free at Noon doubleheader to let us hear some of the new songs live.

After the Meat Puppets woke up the crowd with their set, The Dream Syndicate brought a captivating and lengthy show of their own to the World Cafe Live stage. The band readily admits that their songs are on the longer side — which isn’t great if you’re trying to squeeze in Free at Noon during your lunch break, but welcome and wonderful if you have the afternoon free to groove away to The Dream Syndicate’s fuzzed-out guitar rock.

And that’s what the entirety of today’s sold-out crowd did. It might not take every band 40 minutes to play six songs, but as The Dream Syndicate has proven since the 80’s, their music is worth sticking around for. As frontman Steve Wynn pointed out when introducing their new song “Put Some Miles On,” the band has certainly done just that in their nearly 40-year on-and-off tenure, but as long as they keep up the high-energy psychedelia they do best, their music is just as fresh as it’s ever been.

The Dream Syndicate will play the Sellersville Theater this Saturday, May 11. Tickets are still available; find more information on the XPN Concert Calendar.