1933
2023
I don’t like a lot of things. One thing I unabashedly like—with a fervor that has been described as an obsession at best and an illness at worst—is Pavement.
An injury confined me to my apartment the weekend after my very last Pavement show. The band had put the nail in the coffin for any more shows in the near future. With all my plans cancelled and left to mope in my Pavement-less depression, I looked back at some setlist data for kicks.
The ’90s are alive and well 30 years on. During the 2022‑3 Pavement reunion, the band played more diverse sets than they did in the 2010 reunion, pulling more from the lesser-known bits of their backlog. (Note: I use “b‑side” throughout to refer to any songs that were not part of an LP proper, including those on EPs and singles.)
B‑SIDES↓
You're Killing Me
Box Elder
Maybe Maybe
She Believes
Forklift
Spizzle Trunk
Perfect Depth
Heckler Spray
From Now On
Angel Carver Blues / Mellow Jazz Docent
Debris Slide
Home
Mercy Snack
Baptiss Blacktick
My First Mine
My Radio
Summer Babe
Trigger Cut
No Life Singed Her
In the Mouth a Desert
Conduit for Sale!
Zurich Is Stained
Chesley's Little Wrists
Loretta's Scars
Here
Two States
Perfume-V
Fame Throwa
Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era
Our Singer
B‑SIDES↓
Nothing Ever Happens
Circa 1762
Kentucky Cocktail
Secret Knowledge of Backroads
Texas Never Whispers
Frontwards
Feed 'em to the (Linden) Lions
Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Sue Me Jack
So Stark (You're a Skyscraper)
Greenlander
Rain Ammunition
Drunks With Guns
Ed Ames
The List of Dorms
Baby Yeah
Silence Kid
Elevate Me Later
Stop Breathin
Cut Your Hair
Newark Wilder
Unfair
Gold Soundz
5-4=Unity
Range Life
Heaven Is a Truck
Hit the Plane Down
Fillmore Jive
B‑SIDES↓
Camera
Strings of Nashville
Haunt You Down
Unseen Power of the Picket Fence
All My Friends
Soiled Little Filly
Brink of the Clouds
Tarter Martyr
The Sutcliffe Catering Song
We Dance
Rattled by the Rush
Black Out
Brinx Job
Grounded
Serpentine Pad
Motion Suggests
Father to a Sister of Thought
Extradition
Best Friend's Arm
Grave Architecture
AT&T
Flux=Rad
Fight This Generation
Kennel District
Pueblo
Half a Canyon
Western Homes
B‑SIDES↓
Easily Fooled
Kris Kraft
Give It a Day
Gangsters & Pranksters
Saganaw
I Love Perth
No More Kings
Painted Soldiers
Stereo
Shady Lane
Transport Is Arranged
Date w/ IKEA
Old to Begin
Type Slowly
Embassy Row
Blue Hawaiian
We Are Underused
Passat Dream
Starlings of the Slipstream
Fin
B‑SIDES↓
Westie Can Drum
Winner of the
Birds in the Majic Industry
Harness Your Hopes
Roll With the Wind
No Tan Lines
The Killing Moon
Nigel
Neil Haggerty vs. Jon Spencer
Destroy Mater Dei
The Classical
Spit on a Stranger
Folk Jam
You Are a Light
Cream of Gold
Major Leagues
Platform Blues
Ann Don't Cry
Billie
Speak, See, Remember
The Hexx
Carrot Rope
B‑SIDES↓
The Porpoise and the Hand Grenade
Note: Songs that were released but not in setlists before 2000 are not included (those songs, all b‑sides, were also not played during reunions).
Pavement played 66 songs from their catalog for the 2022‑3 reunion.
Of these, a majority were also played during the 2010 reunion.
Five songs had been played in 2010 but not the 2020s, including one of my favorite b‑sides, “Perfect Depth.” The band has also said in interviews that “Rattled by the Rush” was hard to play live.
About two dozen songs during the 2022‑3 reunion haven’t been played since the ’90s, including songs on later albums and several b‑sides.
Admittedly arriving at the Pavement cult later than most in life, I hadn’t seen them during the 2010 reunion. Before that, I was six when the band played its last show in 1999 before disbanding. My first Pavement show was on Oct. 1, 2022.
The sound at Kings Theatre sucks. But to no one’s surprise, Pavement still exceeded my expectations. I went in thinking they would stick to just the hits and play them poorly. I did not expect “Heckler Spray,” a pre‑Slanted b‑side, to be played, and I did not expect several songs to be updated with fun flourishes. (A review of one of the reunion shows joked that the band finally learned to play their instruments.)
I returned for two more nights at Kings and the band put on a different show every time, from a changing setlist to different riffs on solos to Malkmus forgetting and making up lyrics. The charm of Pavement is that they’re physically incapable of playing the same song the same way twice.
In the past two years, Pavement played 77 shows with a different setlist every night. In addition to the 66 songs from their own catalog, they added a cover of a Jim Pepper song, “Witchi Tai To,” to their canon. Here’s a look at where each song landed on setlists throughout the tour.
☟ Tap on the grid to see the songs on each night
Los Angeles 5/23
Barcelona 6/2
Porto 6/10
San Diego 9/7
Los Angeles 9/9
Los Angeles 9/10
San Francisco 9/13
San Francisco 9/14
Troutdale 9/16
Seattle 9/17
Denver 9/19
Kansas City 9/20
St. Paul 9/21
Chicago 9/23
Detroit 9/24
Toronto 9/27
Boston 9/28
Brooklyn 10/1
Brooklyn 10/2
Brooklyn 10/3
Philadelphia 10/5
Washington 10/6
Atlanta 10/9
Austin 10/10
Austin 10/11
Leeds 10/17
Glasgow 10/18
Edinburgh 10/19
Manchester 10/20
London 10/23
London 10/24
London 10/25
Paris 10/27
Copenhagen 10/29
Oslo 10/30
Stockholm 10/31
Aarhus 11/2
Bremen 11/4
Berlin 11/5
Brussels 11/7
Amsterdam 11/8
Dublin 11/11
Tokyo 2/16
Osaka 2/18
Perth 2/22
Adelaide 2/24
Hobart 2/25
Brisbane 2/28
Wollongong 3/1
Sydney 3/2
Melbourne 3/3
Geelong 3/4
Auckland 3/7
Wellington 3/8
Salt Lake City 5/14
Bilbao 7/7
Lower Withington 7/22
Galway 7/24
Reykjavik 7/28
Reykjavik 7/29
Raleigh 9/7
Brooklyn 9/12
Brooklyn 9/13
Brooklyn 9/14
Cincinnati 9/16
Brooklyn 9/11
Reykjavik 7/27
Tokyo 2/15
Dublin 11/10
London 10/22
Austin 10/10
Atlanta 10/8
Brooklyn 9/30
Toronto 9/26
Chicago 9/22
San Francisco 9/12
Los Angeles 9/8
Opener ↓
Closer ↓
Set
Encore
Note: Shows on May 23, 2022 and Sept. 12, 2023 had a second encore. They are shown in green.
Openers
“Our Singer” opened 11 shows.
“Grounded” opened 26 shows and was also played throughout the set.
Closers
“Fillmore Jive” was a consistent closer, always played at the end of the first set or the encore, closing 13 shows.
“Witchi Tai To,” a Jim Pepper cover, is the only new song the band played. It closed 13 shows.
“Fin” closed 7 shows, but also opened 5 shows.
Encores
“Range Life” was the most-played song this reunion. It was played at all but 3 shows, usually at the end of the first set or during the encore.
“Cut Your Hair” was the second-most played song, often during the encore, but also throughout the set, including 5 as the opener.
“Stop Breathin” was played in 19 encores.
Rarities
“Gangsters & Pranksters,” a Wowee b‑side from the Pacific Trim EP, was played for a few months toward the beginning of the reunion.
“Conduit for Sale!” was not played until the later months.
“Loretta’s Scars,” along with several b‑sides from the Westing comp, were only played during the last few shows, including during the band’s four‑night run at Brooklyn Steel.
After Kings, I went on to see the band six more times on two other continents. (Each time could have been the last, right?)
Three months later, Pavement announced a four‑night residency at Brooklyn Steel in September. Much to my delight and my friends’ and bank account’s dismay, I got tickets to all four shows. It soon became clear that this would be one of Pavement’s last hurrahs for a while, likely for the decade, possibly for good.
The Brooklyn Steel shows were special. The band packed several songs that were played fewer than five times during the reunion into the four nights. “Elevate Me Later,” “Maybe Maybe” and “Loretta’s Scars” were played for the first time during the reunion at Brooklyn Steel. Hearing the opening riffs to the latter of the group (a whole step higher live than on the album version!) was one of my favorite moments of all the shows.
Looking back at Pavement’s entire tour history reveals just how long some songs played during the 2022‑3 reunion hadn’t seen the light of day since the ’90s.
Played
1x
10x
20x
50x
Westing (By Musket And Sextant)
“Box Elder” is the only song played every year Pavement toured.
“My First Mine” was last played in 1990. It was only played twice in 2023.
Westing (By Musket And Sextant)
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
“Box Elder” is the only song played every year Pavement toured.
“My First Mine” was last played in 1990. It was only played twice in 2023.
B‑SIDES↓
You're Killing Me
Box Elder
Maybe Maybe
She Believes
Forklift
Spizzle Trunk
Perfect Depth
Heckler Spray
From Now On
Angel Carver Blues / Mellow Jazz Docent
Debris Slide
Home
Mercy Snack
Baptiss Blacktick
My First Mine
My Radio
Slanted and Enchanted
Among Slanted b‑sides, only those on the Watery, Domestic EP are revived year after year.
Slanted and Enchanted
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
Among Slanted b‑sides, only those on the Watery, Domestic EP are revived year after year.
Summer Babe
Trigger Cut
No Life Singed Her
In the Mouth a Desert
Conduit for Sale!
Zurich Is Stained
Chesley's Little Wrists
Loretta's Scars
Here
Two States
Perfume-V
Fame Throwa
Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era
Our Singer
B‑SIDES↓
Nothing Ever Happens
Circa 1762
Kentucky Cocktail
Secret Knowledge of Backroads
Texas Never Whispers
Frontwards
Feed 'em to the (Linden) Lions
Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Sue Me Jack
So Stark (You're a Skyscraper)
Greenlander
Rain Ammunition
Drunks With Guns
Ed Ames
The List of Dorms
Baby Yeah
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
“Fillmore Jive” was last played in 1994 when Crooked Rain came out. It was played 16 times in 2022‑3.
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
“Fillmore Jive” was last played in 1994 when Crooked Rain came out. It was played 16 times in 2022‑3.
Silence Kid
Elevate Me Later
Stop Breathin
Cut Your Hair
Newark Wilder
Unfair
Gold Soundz
5-4=Unity
Range Life
Heaven Is a Truck
Hit the Plane Down
Fillmore Jive
B‑SIDES↓
Camera
Strings of Nashville
Haunt You Down
Unseen Power of the Picket Fence
All My Friends
Soiled Little Filly
Brink of the Clouds
Tarter Martyr
The Sutcliffe Catering Song
Wowee Zowee
Several songs on Wowee were skipped on the 2010 tour but reappeared in 2022‑3.
Spiral’s “Painted Soldiers,” only released on the Wowee reissue, was played 29 times in 2022‑3.
Wowee Zowee
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
Several songs on Wowee were skipped on the 2010 tour but reappeared in 2022‑3.
Spiral’s “Painted Soldiers,” only released on the Wowee reissue, was played 29 times in 2022‑3.
We Dance
Rattled by the Rush
Black Out
Brinx Job
Grounded
Serpentine Pad
Motion Suggests
Father to a Sister of Thought
Extradition
Best Friend's Arm
Grave Architecture
AT&T
Flux=Rad
Fight This Generation
Kennel District
Pueblo
Half a Canyon
Western Homes
B‑SIDES↓
Easily Fooled
Kris Kraft
Give It a Day
Gangsters & Pranksters
Saganaw
I Love Perth
No More Kings
Painted Soldiers
Brighten the Corners
“Stereo” ties with “Cut Your Hair” as the most played songs ever.
An early version of “Starlings” was first played in ’92. In the recording, Bob says he’s never heard the song before.
Because of some weird algorithm, “Harness Your Hopes” went from two plays in the ’90s to being tied with “Stereo” as the third most-played song in 2022‑3.
Brighten the Corners
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
“Stereo” ties with “Cut Your Hair” as the most played songs ever.
An early version of “Starlings” was first played in ’92. In the recording, Bob says he’s never heard the song before.
Because of some weird algorithm, “Harness Your Hopes” went from two plays in the ’90s to being tied with “Stereo” as the third most-played song in 2022‑3.
Stereo
Shady Lane
Transport Is Arranged
Date w/ IKEA
Old to Begin
Type Slowly
Embassy Row
Blue Hawaiian
We Are Underused
Passat Dream
Starlings of the Slipstream
Fin
B‑SIDES↓
Westie Can Drum
Winner of the
Birds in the Majic Industry
Harness Your Hopes
Roll With the Wind
No Tan Lines
The Killing Moon
Nigel
Neil Haggerty vs. Jon Spencer
Destroy Mater Dei
The Classical
Terror Twilight
Songs from Terror Twilight remain the most elusive non‑b‑sides live, with many songs only played on the ’99 tour.
Terror Twilight
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999
2010
2022‑3
Songs from Terror Twilight remain the most elusive non‑b‑sides live, with many songs only played on the ’99 tour.
Spit on a Stranger
Folk Jam
You Are a Light
Cream of Gold
Major Leagues
Platform Blues
Ann Don't Cry
Billie
Speak, See, Remember
The Hexx
Carrot Rope
B‑SIDES↓
The Porpoise and the Hand Grenade
Yes, every show I went to was worth it. No, I will not be taking questions at this time. I caught the 2020s rendition of nearly every song the band played this decade. I heard that “Cut Your Hair” solo 10 times and Malkmus managed to pull a different move for each one.
Someone once remarked that I had gone to a lifetime’s worth of Pavement shows. All I can say is, here’s to Pavement 2030 (?).
Published Oct. 16, 2023.
Sources: Setlist.fm, Discogs.com, Bandcamp.com. Setlist data as of Sept. 17, 2023. Setlist items that are medleys are not included. B‑sides of the same name are grouped with the first compilation they are released on.
Corrections: A previous version of this page incorrectly stated the number of times “Our Singer” and “Grounded” opened shows. “Our Singer” opened 11, not 10, times. “Grounded” opened 26, not 24, times.
By Denise Lu. Get in touch if you have an original pressing of Slay Tracks you want to sell me.