People went to a Dinosaur Jr show to see that volatility on stage. It was almost like going to see a bearded lady or a freak show in the early days.”

So says Murph, drummer with the legendary Boston trio, who reunited with the original line-up of guitarist J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow in 2005 for the first time since the onstage bust-up that split the band in 1989.

Now with their second post-reunion album Farm under their belts Dinosaur Jr is back on tour, playing a sold-out show at Concorde 2 tonight.

“I really like the new record,” says Murph. ”It’s more inspired than Beyond [the first reunion album], which was made over a period of seven months in and out of touring.

“For this record we agreed to put a total of three months into it for the writing and recording. We were under the gun, but we seem to work well that way.”

With his self-confessed laissez-faire attitude Murph was pretty much left in the middle while J and Lou battled it out in the late 1980s.

“It was really strange,” he says now. “I came from a family where my parents had split up and I was always the messenger boy. I got the same feeling with those guys – it used to make me angry.”

The original trio split in 1989 when Lou walked out to concentrate on his own band Sebadoh.

“When Lou left I had to deal with J directly,” says Murph. “He was really getting his own voice – Green Mind [the first Dinosaur Jr album without Lou] was where he started recording everything himself. Dealing with somebody going through that wasn’t always that easy.”

Part of the problem for Murph, who eventually left after the band’s 1993 album Where You Been, was that J is a drummer himself and wrote Murph’s drum patterns – something that has continued with the reunion albums.

“He is a lot more open to interpretation now,” admits Murph. “He’s much more into Lou and I contributing.

Back then it was like being in arithmetic or mathematics class.”

The reason for the band’s better relationship could be put down to time.”Now it is so much more relaxed,” says Murph. ”Lou and J having families has mellowed them out.

“A lot of what happened before I can attribute to us being kids. When I look at 20 or 22-year-old kids in a band it’s like a nightmare – I would hate to imagine travelling around the world like that again.”

What hasn’t changed in the band’s live show, which will be focused on the trio’s five albums together, is the intensity and the high volume.

“Lou and I have talked about doing songs from the records J did without us,” says Murph. “But it is getting to the point where there are too many songs. I think we only have 120 minutes of high intensity in us! I don’t think we could handle playing three-hour sets.

“The show is still so loud. J is now up to four stacks. I am at the point where I break cymbals after a few weeks or a month on the road which is a pretty good sign of how hard I am having to hit them.”

*Starts 7.30pm, SOLD OUT. Call 01273 673311 for returns.