Stephen Malkmus officially the coolest guy on earth
by The Scene on February 26th, 2009
As part of San Francisco’s seminal NoisePop festival, currently underway this week amidst a dizzying haze of indie shows and flannel-clad fixie-bikers, Stephen Malkmus played a solo acoustic guitar set at SF’s lovely Great American Music Hall. Performing for a sold-out crowd, this event can only be properly described as a Pavement fan’s wet dream, and coupled with the recent news of a 4/5 Pavement reunion at Bob N’s wedding last week, February is something of a wet-dream month. Excepting the 2 competent but boring folk guitar opening acts, here’s why the night was pure perfection:
- Comes onstage with his laptop, on which he’d just written a loose setlist. He complains about having to use complex apps to write out this setlist, and laments “what the hell happened to AppleText?” Audience calls out for Powerpoint, Excel, etc., someone yells “Nerd!” he laughs and replies “Yeah, nerd!”
- Opens with Pavement live favorite b-side Harness Your Hopes. This is a very good sign for the evening.
- Looks like he may be stoned and is having a great time. The house is packed with what are obviously hardcore Pavement fans making constant requests for rare tracks
- Spends his long set covering every range of his career, from Real Emotional Trash all the way back to Summer Babe and Shoot The Singer. Particularly beautiful cuts include Range Life, Fin, Heaven Is A Truck, Pink India, Starlings in the Slipstream, and encore-closer Here.
- It seems he hasn’t played some of these songs in years, as he struggles to remember certain verses and progressions. It’s all in good fun though, such as when he stops playing Vanessa From Queens after forgetting the 2nd verse and apologizes to the audience with a knowing smirk on his face. In front of this loving crowd, Malkmus can do no wrong; every word and movement from him is gospel, pure and absolute.
- Audience members sing along throughout, but never (thank god) annoyingly so.
- Audience requests are taken regularly, although demands for “1% of One” and “No More Shoes” are met with a “how the fuck am I supposed to do that without a band?” smirk. At numerous points, Malkmus apologizes for not being able to end songs well, since instrumental codas from originals are regularly replaced by random acoustic guitar noise and feedback on certain pieces. Nobody requests a Spiral Stairs song, especially not Hit The Plane Down, which would have been… strange on solo acoustic guitar.
- Okay, here’s the real juice: returning onstage for his encore set, Malkmus proceeds to break into a seemingly spontaneous cover of “Love Train”. We aren’t kidding. He sings falsetto and gets really into it. So does the entire audience, clapping and singing along. This is a moment packed with humor, absurdity, cathartic release of emotion, intelligence, and humility in the face of adoring fans. In other words, a summary of Pavement’s entire career. Perfection through the art of roughness. Beauty in sound always through natural conveyance of emotions, songs, and lyrics. A pile of gold found on an old crusty seat on the subway. Too many ways to describe the awesomeness.
Point in closing: Stephen Malkmus has been one of the most important voices of music in the past 2 decades, and continues this legend merely by showing up at gigs and being himself. His work seems effortless, his happiness contagious. The Scene loves you S.M.; without your work, we wouldn’t even know what indie rock is.
