Confidence In Backcatalogue

It may just be me, but we seem to live in an age in music where more and more bands have the ability to make relevant music way beyond the age of 30. Artists like The Flaming Lips, Mission Of Burma, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have made great records way after their projected prime, whereas great artists that merged out of the 1960s such as say...The Rolling Stones, make a record every five years or so that of course everyone says is great at the time when in actuality they really mean "it's not bad considering how over the hill these guys are." It shows in their concerts. The setlist will tend to consist of a handful of tracks from their current record (if that) followed by a parade of FM standards. The album that preceded the current one is jettisoned, which only seems to confirm how irrelevant it is. This being said, it's a little disheartening to see two great bands, Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth, both of which I saw last night, fall into a similar pigeonhole. Dino reunited with all three original members four years ago and since then have delivered two solid records, Beyond (2007) and Farm (2009). Although they can be partly excused as their set was limited being technically an opener, I was disappointed to not hear any songs from Beyond. Likewise, Sonic Youth's set consisted of nearly every song from The Eternal (2009) along with a handful of tracks from their 80's output. A great show nonetheless, one still can't help feel a lack of confidence in their previous 2000's albums. Murray Street and Rather Ripped are indisputably great and will surely be remembered in retrospect. It might not be the best point to be making since a setlist consisting of 11 tracks from Sonic Youth's most recent album is hardly catering to a mainstream audience the way Paul McCartney does when he runs through The Beatles catalogue - I still feel it's important for great artists to believe in their back catalogue, heyday or not.