Pavement: Auckland Town Hall, 1st March.
For those of you who don’t know who Pavement are and are unaware of the magnitude of their recent gig, here’s a quick catch-up: Pavement, one of the greatest and most influential alternative rock bands of all time split up, acrimoniously in 1999. Ten years later, out-of-the-blue, they announced four NYC shows for September 2010. Following that, they announced shows in the UK in May, and Australia and NZ in March, with the New Zealand show the first on the list. In other words, we were the first in the world to see Pavement reform. And by God, it met all expectations and then some.
Strangely, I turned up thirty minutes before doors opened to find that I was only third in the queue. This of course meant that I came to be on the rail and had a prime spot for the night’s events. I was surrounded by die-hards who had flown in from all over the world, all of them shivering with anticipation.
The night opened with the 3Ds playing in support, having recently reformed themselves for a series of shows. Many indie-rock bands cite the 3D’s as an influence, and from their performance it was clear to see why. They played fuzzy, energetic garage rock with no frills: a perfect set up for what was to follow.
Pavement took to the stage at 9.30 to a flourish of screams and tears from the mostly 20s-30s crowd. Time had been kind to most of the members, with only guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg looking like a cool uncle. Über-skinny front-man Stephen “SM” Malkmus still has what it takes, alternately drawling and yelping out his famously confusing lyrics, despite himself admitting he had a cold. Although his mic-stand faced inwards, he commanded the audience’s attention: he penguin walked, awkward-dad-danced, abused his guitars and shredded in the foetal position. Drummer Steve West and bassist Mark Ibold—back from a stint with Sonic Youth—had smiles on their faces throughout the entire evening that matched the audience’s. Percussionist/keyboardist/harmonica player/general screaming nutter Bob Nastanovich had bundles of energy, flying around and threatening to upstage Malkmus, which created a little tension sometimes. Given the band’s shaky history, a prolonged tuning session or even a bit of banter had the audience praying that nobody would snap. However, the band pulled through.
If you were to write a dream Pavement set list—as the guy standing next to me had done—you would’ve found that the band pretty much stuck to it. They played all their most well known songs, as well as a few unexpected ones which pleased the hardcore fans. Yes, like any concert there were some songs that you wish they had played, but there was such a huge amount of respect for Pavement in Auckland Town Hall that nobody went home complaining. I mean, how on earth could anybody complain? We witnessed one of the seminal alternative rock bands play their first show in eleven years! Holy crap, I’m still buzzing…
Giles Dexter
