Pavement at Pitchfork 2010

After a scorching Friday and Saturday, fans crowded the stage to see the main attraction of the entire Pitchfork festival.

I was about forty feet away from the stage in the middle of the crowd. I heard someone yell "Who brings a baby to a mosh pit?"

The instruments sat onstage, waiting for their players to appear. Suddenly, a man emerged from backstage. It was the 1990's disc jockey, Rockin' Ryan Murphy.

He wore a brown baseball hat, a short-sleeve shirt and glasses. For a moment, I swore that it was Michael Moore. Rockin' Ryan Murphy went on a ten-minute tirade about Lollapalooza and Pavement.

The crowd became angry. A chant of "Pavement!" arose from the crowd.

Finally, Malkmus, Ibold, Kannburg, Nastanovich, and West emerged from backstage. Gloriously, they false-started, and went into "Cut Your Hair".

It was as if my favorite basketball team of all-time decided to play an exhibition game.

Watching Pavement live, again, after ten years, was more than incredible. They were older, sure, but the teamwork was still there. They still brought their game - gaunter, balder, chubbier, hoarser, and more spastic than ever.

Dare I say, 'slacker' than ever?

The reason why Pavement works as a band I think is because they have that fantastic teamwork. The last time I saw Pavement was in Tucson in 1999, and the teamwork and boyish attitude was still there. They might not be the best of friends in real life, but they remind me of playing in garage bands as a teenager and college student.

It's that weird, unmistakable feeling that Pavement, and some other bands, bring to the stage. They're not worried about making mistakes, that's part of the performance. It removes a lot of the social pressure felt while playing music - trying to impress other people for no reason.

Malkmus, long-haired and hoarse as always, lost his voice during "Unfair". Bob Nastanovich picked up the mic and screamed the chorus. He had that same quiet strength and dramatic flair. He also burned through three Stratocasters, each one tuned differently.

Malkmus really knows his country guitar licks, evidenced by his impromptu solos on Range Life.

Kannburg launched into "Kennel District" (E-A-F#min-A) with bar chords. Amazingly, it sounded like a brand new song. Kannburg has a great 70's double-humbucker telecaster, it's jangle-tastic.

One of the cats from Broken Social Scene jumped onstage to accompany Kannburg on "Two states".

Good ol' Ibold's bass was loud. I think the PA system had his bass as the loudest instrument, it was almost overpowering at times. I say, the louder the better. I swear I saw someone throw a "Free Kitten" t-shirt on stage.

Steve West was solid as ever. He had on those basketball goggles. At one point, the crowd threw a glow-stick and it ricocheted against one of his cymbals. Westie stood on the drum stool and delicately stepped off to hit the final drumbeats.

Nastanovich excellently created assorted bird, drum, and keyboard noises and also hyped the crowd. He screamed a few times into the microphone.

Here is their set list from what I remember.

Cut Your Hair
In the Mouth of a Desert
Silence Kit
Kennel District
Shady Lane
Frontwards
Unfair
Grounded
Debris Slide
Spit on a Stranger
Range Life
Perfume-V
(not historically accurate) Trigger Cut
Fin
Stereo
Two States
Gold Soundz
Conduit for Sale
Stop Breathin
Here
the Hexx

As they played the final notes of the Hexx, each member thanked the crowd, and they quietly walked backstage.

In conclusion, many of the songs sounded exactly like their studio versions. Other times, the songs seemed like they were in different modes or flipped chords. I'm not sure if this was on purpose or if the chordal ideas were adjusted during rehearsal. I suspect the notes were never written down; these were best-guess 7th chords, minor 6ths and jazz chords.

I think that the songs are already complex, one of the reasons why Pavement plays slack is because there's less room to improvise for those chord progressions - they've been imagined out several hundred times already. We already know where the chords are going; Pavement is coloring outside the lines, painting with the numbers out of order.

There they stood, and there they went: my rock and roll heroes.

As far as my feelings go, I'm not one to ruminate on nostalgia too much. I envy people discovering Pavement for the first time. The 1990's came and went and everything that we took seriously disappeared. Smashing Pumpkins and the Stone Temple Pilots are in the used section at your record store; Pavement CDs and reissues (like Slanted and Enchanted) are collectors' items.

I guess it's like Malkmus sings in "Trigger Cut":

Ex-magician

Still knows the tricks
Tricks are everything
To me
Until it's free

I know the truth
Truth in the words
Truth I made for you
Because
It's just as good