At a table near the stairs at Sony Hall, a 900-capacity supper club just off Times Square, a stack of photocopies sat featuring a big list of Pavement songs and a note: “In the spirit of the ’90s-era Pavement, particularly Lollapalooza (95), we didn’t often have a game plan or a set list — we don’t tonight but the songs will be pulled from this, out-of-order, buncha Pavement songs. Thank you for your patience and thanks for coming!”
The show, a one-off in conjunction with this week’s New York Film Festival premiere of Alex Ross Perry’s documentary/biopic/musical meta movie Pavements, was a treasure trove for fans of the indie rock icons’ scrappy, shambolic early ’90s era. The show went basically chronologically, opening with lots of songs from the early EPs collected on comp Westing (By Musket and Sextant), then most of Slanted and Enchanted , and then a few from later in their discography. Nuggets dusted off: “Easily Fooled,” a b-side to “Rattled By La Rush,” got its first play since 1997, and Demolition Plot J-7’s “Perfect Depth” got it’s first airing since 2012.
Fitting with the song selection and the random nature of the song order — shouted out to each other after deliberation — this was the sloppiest Pavement show I’ve seen since the ’90s and sound problems didn’t help. However, the band seemed to be having fun, some more than others, and the audience full of die-hards, friends and lucky industry folks who got on the guestlist didn’t seem to mind, and were singing along to even the deepest cuts. There wasn’t much in the way of stage banter, though Bob Nastanovich opened the show by having everyone wish former president Jimmy Carter a happy 100th birthday, and later quizzed the audience about trippa alla romana while the rest of the band figured out what to play next.
The band’s set wrapped up with “Harness Your Hopes,” a b-side that has become their most-streamed song, and after it Stephen Malkmus told the crowd, “Well that’s the end our our career…good night!” Given the setlist order, it was clearly a joke, but he also seemed ready to put the band to bed for a while. The rest of Pavement seemed a little unsure if that was really it but they bid the crowd adieu, leaving the stage for 10 minutes or so before coming back for an encore.
Nastanovich, who was definitely having the best time of anyone at Sony Hall, thanked the crowd and told everyone that this would be Pavement’s “last show for a long time” before they kicked into Spiral Stairs’ Petty-esque “Date w/ IKEA” from Terror Twilight, and then closed out the show with “Fight This Generation.” It was a very Pavement end to this show and probably this surprisingly long reunion run.
Check out photos by Ellen Qbertplaya, the setlist and full fan-shot video of Pavement’s Sony Hall show below.
SETLIST: Pavement @ Sony Hall 10/1/2024
You’re Killing Me
Box Elder
She Believes
Spizzle Trunk
Perfect Depth
Heckler Spray
Angel Carver Blues / Mellow Jazz Docent
Debris Slide
Feed ’em to the (Linden) Lions
Two States
Loretta’s Scars
Zurich Is Stained
Trigger Cut
In the Mouth a Desert
Here
Conduit for Sale!
Silence Kid
Summer Babe
Gold Soundz
Kennel District
Father to a Sister of Thought
Easily Fooled
Harness Your Hopes
Encore:
Date w/ IKEA
Fight This Generation