Pavement:Classic or Dud

they definitely seem to be having more fun this tine around — it's nice!

I really love the versions of "Cut Your Hair" and 'Perfume-V" here as well

they seem a little "restrained" hope it's just the big stage, and hope there are lotsa tapers this fall

Is there a little bit of "All Apologies" in the "Type Slowly" jam, do you think?

their p4k set in 2009 (?) was underwhelming, glad to see they're reaping the love from people and truly enjoying themselves

OMG "Two States"!!!!!!

Just want to say I loved them in 2010 and thought they were having fun then too! Were they faking?

(a lot more fun than they were having touring terror twilight in any event)

Yeah they definitely seemed to be having fun when I saw 'em in 2010, and so did the crowd.

i saw them in 2010 and they killed. . .

my sense/guess is the big shows they're a little nervous, that primavera show SM doesn't even open his eyes for like the first 5 songs

malk seemed salty at the rest of the band at another show i saw around that time, had to start/stop then explain how a song went to spiral stairs to a half filled shitty venue

haha, it may have just been me having less fun in 2010, i don't know.

"Zurich Is Stained" sounds hella out of tune at the beginning(?)

Lotta singing along in this audience. Really had no idea this many people knew the words to old Pavement songs in 2022.

xp guess it's just Spiral's gtr all the way thru that song

god, what a fuckin' dream for Rebecca Cole. or at least it looks like a dream to me.

i would love to read a long, good interview with her about this experience.

Glasgow show I saw in 2010 was awkward as hell and soured the whole thing. Everything seems much better now

my sense/guess is the big shows they're a little nervous, that primavera show SM doesn't even open his eyes for like the first 5 songs

obsessed with this set tbh

I bought Slay Tracks b/c I am from Charlottesville and a friend of mine tipped me to it after I left town (in 1984) but was still coming back in the college and post-college years, so wild to me that Berman and Malkmus and James McNew (later of Yo La Tengo, who I knew in high school altho we went to different districts) all played in a basement proto-band with said friend, if I had stayed in town I would have met them. Instead I went to the West Coast and followed the band on and off until the post-Wowee era

coming at me after all these years this stuff hits hard, I was cool on the Watery-Crooked era back in the day but now "Frontwards" and "Cut Your Hair" and "Unfair" sound amazing to me in this context. I'd pay good money for a professionally mixed release of this set.

I think someone was taping their rehearsals back in the spring summer professionally, it was some famous director, Alex Ross Perry? But it looks like he did the Harness Your Hopes video. But if you look at their IG those LA rehearsals were taped and possibly even the Portland stuff.

I actually listened to a few 2010 reunion shows this week and they sound great for the most part. I think that maybe at the time, I wasn't quite ready for 90s nostalgia. I had fun at the show I saw back then, but it felt a little un-memorable.

i got lucky and saw a show where they played 3/4 of Watery Domestic! (They skipped Feed Em To the Lions)

does SM forget to introduce Bob at the end of that Primavera set?

Crazy that the L.A. shows are in a few weeks… the summer went fast.

Errata: sometime in the last month, they posted an Instagram video of the guys goofing around at a chili dog place a few miles from our house. (I think it was even a live stream at first; we thought of jumping in the car and going down there…)

The Uncut mag has some great bits of narrative & ephemera I’ve never heard/seen. Dig this Kannberg story:

https://i.imgur.com/I8MHvuC_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

A few golden oldies at last night’s SD show: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pavement/2022/balboa-theatre-san-diego-ca-1bb0fd50.html

A few songs last night were great – Type Slowly, Home, Unfair – but the rest of it kind of just felt like your average Pavement show… definitely didn’t have the magic of that first club show in May, but I guess that’s not surprising (I feel really lucky to have been at that one). Will be back tonight as well.

(sorry, guess I’ve sort of jacked this thread…)

I’m wondering if it would just be cheaper to cop merch from the site as opposed to at the show (I’m seeing them Oct 6).

By merch I mean shirts

I can report back on T-shirt prices at the merch table, if you’re interested.

I’d appreciate that!

I'd peg the under/over on a t-shirt at $33

Tonight was awesome!! They killed it. Such a good show…

(T-shirts are $35)

This rips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td0revzciXM

well I'm off to see this band

Fantastic shows in Chicago—I bought a ticket to the second one immediately after coming home from the first. Only a few shared songs between the last night and tonight; the former was heavier on Brighten, tonight on Slanted and the EPs. I haven’t gone to a show in years, but I’d never seen them before and this thread convinced me—boy, am I glad for that. I just stood there grinning and thinking that this sound is my platonic ideal of ’90s guitar music.

ACL Live Stream On Monday

https://acltv.com/2022/10/06/live-stream-pavement/

Thanks for the Orpheum link above. I had to miss the NY shows (too much going on this week and Kings is quite a hike from where I am), but that was a nice consolation. I know all four NY shows were recorded by tapers so hopefully those will be widely available soon. (One's on archive.)

Yes, thanks for that! I had a ticket for the Philly show but wasn't able to make the trek out there, so I consoled myself by digging into the Primavera and Orpheum sets last night instead (I'd been holding off on watching them so I could go into the show fresh).

I think the Orpheum set ended up being a better watch simply because it gave you the option to see anything at any point in time - whichever player you wanted to watch or the background projections if you were more interested in that. I put it on a 55" monitor hooked up to a stereo system and it was pretty awesome - it was kind of like having a nice balcony seat in a way.

They brought Kurt Vile out to sing Zurich in Phila last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma1RbgXEToI

This Guardian article (which the band is promoting) has some interesting details about how the breakup affected Kannberg, etc.

That was a great read. I didn't realize Kannberg was about to be a bus driver in Seattle when he got the call about the 2010 reunion. Crazy. Reminds me of Topper Headon and how he used to drive a cab sometime after the Clash - imagine getting a ride only to discover the driver was part of your favorite band.

Can someone explain to me why this particular reunion tour is so newsworthy? I mean, they've reunited several times before, right? And post-unlikely algorithmic hit "Harness Your Hopes?" My entire timeline has been nothing but Pavement all week. To be sure, much better than trending topics about bombings or the alt right, but I don't understand why people are acting like this one is such a huge deal? What am I missing?

They seem to be having a good time?

Actually no, it's been twelve years since they last toured. (Would've been ten but the pandemic happened.) And before that, it had been over ten with serious doubts if they'd ever reunite again. So just two reunions and the rarity alone is special. As the Guardian article emphasized, they turned down an offer from Jeff Tweedy to do a co-headlining tour in 2014. (Kannberg wanted to but Bob thought it was a bad idea.)

("Actually no" should have an xp in front of it - they ARE having a good time.)

also they are playing lots of songs that they have never played live before!

It's their 2nd (and likely final, if Malk is to be believed) reunion; they're at a cultural "high point" and enjoying new fans/goodwill (vs. 2010); they're playing great – all as mentioned above