Pavement to end the week. In one of their last concerts together before the split, recorded live from Royal Court at the Sound City ’99 Festival in Liverpool and mc’d by the legendary John Peel – from October 28, 1999.
Since I ran an earlier Pavement concert in October and gave you all the background information on the band at the time, I don’t need to add all that much here. Other than what happened during the years after the split and the eventual reunion:
On September 15, 2009, Brooklyn Vegan reported that Pavement were scheduled to perform multiple benefit show dates in New York City’s Central Park from September 21, 2010. Official statements by the band, label, venue and promoter were released on September 17, 2009 confirming the reunion. The announcement included one concert in Central Park and the promise of a tour, but said that the reunion may only be a one-off event. It said, “Please be advised this tour is not a prelude to additional jaunts and/or a permanent reunion.” Tickets for the first Central Park concert sold out in two minutes, leading to the announcement of three more shows at the same venue.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Scott Kannberg spoke about the band’s future: “We’ll do some rehearsing in the new year. The Central Park SummerStage shows, we’ll probably end up doing one or two of those. There’s festivals and stuff that we’re talking to, like Coachella. After that, anything that happens in the future is in the future.” The band since confirmed a world-wide tour which started in Auckland, New Zealand on March 1 at the Auckland Town Hall, before heading on to Australia then heading to the UK, including the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Minehead, Somerset (May 14 – 16) and several European shows. They also performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2010, the Sasquatch! and Primavera Sound Festivals in May, the Toronto Island Concert in June with Broken Social Scene, Band Of Horses, and others, Open’er Festival, Roskilde Festival and Les Ardentes and Pitchfork Music Festival in July.
The band released a “best-of” compilation album in March 2010, entitled Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement. On June 24, 2010, Pavement performed at the Bob Hope Theatre in Stockton, their first-ever hometown show. Original drummer Gary Young joined the band for an encore, playing three songs from Slanted and Enchanted. Young also joined the band during six songs the next night at The Greek Theater in Berkeley.
In September 2010, Pavement appeared on The Colbert Report and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. After concluding their proper US tour at the Hollywood Bowl on September 30, the band played the following night in Las Vegas at the Palms Casino as a part of the Matador 21 festival. During their set, Scott Kannberg kicked his monitor and smashed his guitar into his amp in frustration of not being able to hear himself while performing. NME noted the band had an “icy atmosphere onstage”. The band honored a further two South American show commitments in November 2010.
In an interview with Las Vegas Weekly, Malkmus addressed the possibility of the band continuing beyond their 2010 tour. He commented: “No, we’re sticking to our guns and what we promised, even though it has been fun. Anyone who bought a ticket to see us, I don’t want them to have paid these slightly higher prices to see us and then have us right back there again—it’s just disingenuous. And we want to keep it fun.” In another interview with Spin magazine, Bob Nastanovich suggested it was a possibility that the band would play more shows, but ruled out new material as “Stephen does not write songs for Pavement anymore, or songs in the Pavement mindset.”
Scott Kannberg joined Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks onstage at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on March 28, 2014, for an encore performance of the Pavement song “Stereo.”
According to Bob Nastanovich, the members of Pavement approached Stephen Malkmus with the idea of a reunion tour in 2015 or 2016 but “it did not float.”
On October 1 and 2, 2016 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks performed at Spiral Stairs’ 50th birthday celebration at The Chapel in San Francisco. On the first night Kannberg joined Malkmus and The Jicks onstage for four songs. The following night Kannberg played three more songs with the group, joined by Gary Young on the final two.
On September 27, 2017 BrooklynVegan reported that Kannberg addressed the possibility of a band reunion in an interview with the Italian radio station Radio Città del Capo. Kannberg mentions there has been some chatter about getting the band back together in 2019 to mark Pavement’s 30th anniversary: “We haven’t really discussed it, but there has been some talk about our 30th anniversary in 2019 maybe doing some stuff, so stay tuned!”
In an interview in May of 2018, Malkmus nixed the idea of a 30th anniversary reunion, saying, “No, that’s not happening. It’s not possible.”
Thanks Wikipedia, as always.
Now crank it up and get ready for the weekend. You earned it.
