Watching Pavement crank out a nearly two-hour set of classic tracks in front of a less-than-capacity crowd in a massive hockey arena was… well… just as weird as sounds.
Several months into its much-hyped reunion tour, the good news is that band was pretty tight musically – quite possibly tighter than any other point during its heyday – and that served the songs well. Everyone on stage also appeared to be having a good enough time, with Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg manning stage left, Steve West holding it down behind the kit with jack-of-all-trades hype man Bob Nastanovich at his side, Mark Ibold patrolling center stage and Stephen Malkmus overseeing it all from behind an arc of monitors set far stage-right.
The band eased into things with “Silence Kit” and “Starlings of the Slipstream” before erupting into “Two States.” Malkmus still clearly runs the show, but it’s Nastanovich who saved the vibe on this night as he willed the cavernous arena crowd into fist-raising sing-alongs throughout the set.
Things hit a real high point mid-way with a stunning run through “Stereo,” “Date with Ikea,” “Stop Breathin,” “Gold Soundz” and “Conduit for Sale!” The other obvious contenders were all there – “Cut Your Hair” to close the main set, “Range Life” and “Spit on a Stranger” in the encores – but there were plenty of gems on display as well, including what appears to be the 2010 tour debut of “Brinx Job.”
By the time Pavement closed things out with “Here,” the band had pulled from every nook and cranny of its catalog, with the show clocking in at nearly 10 songs longer than its last Boston gig (at the Roxy during the summer of ’99). Pavement’s setlist looked something like this (feel free to comment with revisions):
Silence Kit / Starlings of the Slipstream / Two States / Trigger Cut / Heckler Spray > In the Mouth a Desert / Stereo / Date with Ikea / Stop Breathin / Gold Soundz / Conduit For Sale! / Loretta’s Scars / Grounded / Summer Babe / Frontwards / Unfair / Fight This Generation / Perfume-V / We Dance / Brinx Job / Fin / Cut Your Hair // Rattled by the Rush / Kennel District / Range Life /// Spit on a Stranger / Shoot The Singer / Here
Jenny Lewis and boyfriend Jonathan Rice showed startling little chemistry in their opening set as the newly christened Jenny & Johnny, peaking with the set-opening “Scissor Runner” before meandering through a selection of songs that pulled from the recently released “We’re Having Fun Now” and Lewis’s other post-Rilo Kiley solo output.
