Not every band sounds good at the Pritzker Pavillion. It usually seems like the more sparse your sound you have, the better. No Age is not such a band. A group that relies on drenching itself in reverb only confuses matters in the echoing acoustics of this venue. It was especially rocky the first two songs, most disappointingly on the otherwise great “Teen Creeps,” from Nouns. After that, the sound was better but not completely sorted out. The new single from the upcoming Everything In Between, “Glitter”, actually sounded better and fuller in person. They did close out wonderfully with “Eraser,”.
Pavement, on the other hand, benefitted greatly from Pritzker’s acoustics, causing the fenders of Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg to jangle in delight from opposite ends of the stage. With bassist Mark Ibold, always looking like he knows that he’s the luckiest dude in the room, manning the middle. The venue holds max 11,000, a much more intimate setting than the throngs of hipsters that mucked about at their Pitchfork Fesitval performance months earlier. And unlike that show, I could hear the band this time. They dove right into “Silence Kit,” from 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The setlist offered few surprises since the closest thing to a new release they could be supporting was this year’s “greatest hits” compilation, Quarantine The Past. One quarter of the set (7 songs of 28) came from Crooked Rain. I was overjoyed that they performed six tracks from 1995’s Wowee Zowee, and that was 1 more than from the much more highly regarded Slanted And Enchanted.
It’s easy to forget that that the band, while Bob Nastanovich isn’t yelling, the band is capable of really beautiful moments. “Father To A Sister Of A Thought,” and “Spit On A Stranger,” (the long tune from 1999’s swan song, Terror Twilight) are pull out your lighter-worthy. It was also a pleasure to hear Kannberg, a.k.a. Spiral Stairs, lead the charge with a pepped-up “Kennel District,” and a great rendition of “Date w/IKEA,”, both sounding even better live than on record. All the anthems were present and accounted for with the crowd raucously singing along to “Stereo,” and “Shady Lane,” from Brighten The Corners. “Here,” was mesmerizing.
Watching this immensely influential band, I couldn’t shake a few lingering thoughts. These guys were considered slackers. Where did that stigma come from? It is true that the band started as just something fun to do and became a career. But I get no impression that they’re not taking what they do seriously. While peers of theirs in Sonic Youth are genius artists (they are) and Nirvana (who had just as much of a slacker aesthetic) became a voice of a generation, Pavement was viewed as the band that didn’t want success, that shied away from it. It’s not like they had much help in achieving it.
Their video for the classic “Cut Your Hair,” was once in MTV’s “Buzz Bin”. That is the largest extent of mainstream attention that younger audiences had to Pavement. And for the amount of times it actually aired on MTV during prime viewing hours, it may as well have been in the recycling bin. The lack of soaring success may even have played into the dissolution of the band. If Malkmus’s work had actually been validated, they might have stayed together. Their stage banter and body language denoted to me a band that is enjoying what they’re doing. When introducing Wowee Zowee‘s “Rattled By The Rush,” Malkmus laments the song “shoulda been a mega-fucking hit”. A lot of them should have, Stephen. And while this tour is a big money grab, no one can deny them their payday. And as “Range Life,” ended and they said goodbye and “see you in a decade”, it made me wonder if this is how it was supposed to be.
Photo by “Another Guy Named Matt”
