Show review: Bob Mould at Paradise Rock Club – 9/10
Former Hüsker Dü member and Sugar frontman Bob Mould stopped by the Paradise last Monday for a sold out show featuring songs new and old, as well as an opening set from Cymbals Eat Guitars.
Mould is something of a towering figure in alternative rock culture. Signed to SST Records alongside Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü were instrumental in the shaping of what we know today as indie rock. The impact of Sugar in the nineties wouldn’t be quite so dramatic, but their brief two-albums-and-an-EP discography is indisputably solid from front to back. Recent forays into dance music aside, Mould has cast a long shadow over rock in the independent scene for the past few decades. Monday’s show saw him acknowledge this with a set that was simultaneously nostalgic and forward thinking.
The idea behind Mould’s current tour is a reappraisal and celebration of the old as well as an introduction of the new. The set started off with Sugar’s stellar 1992 debut “Copper Blue” in its entirety, followed by songs from Mould’s new solo record and capped off with a few choice Hüsker Dü cuts. Throughout the night it was clear that none of the fury which characterized his early work has ever really left Mould over the years. Most every song from “Copper Blue” was torn into with fiery aggression and an accelerated tempo. Selections from this year’s “Silver Age” fit snugly among the old tunes; Mould sounds more pissed off than he has since the 80s. A friend remarked to me before the show that “aging Bob Mould” probably wouldn’t play loud enough to warrant ear plugs, but the roaring wall of sound produced by the three piece band would beg to differ. Aging seems to have done the opposite of mellowing for Mould, and that’s a blessing for his audience.
The newly assembled backing band consists of bassist Jason Narducy of Telekinesis and drummer Jon Wurster of Superchunk, The Mountain Goats and Twitter. If Wurster’s near-constant smile and Narducy’s Pollardesque high-kicks were anything to go by, the band is having an absolute blast doing these shows. Even Mould cracked a smile once the all-business “Copper Blue” half of the set was finished. The accompanying duo more than adequately fill the rather large shoes of collaborators in previous bands. Mould’s vocals still have an effective range between aggressive and tuneful, and his guitar work is force-of-nature powerful; a thick assault of distortion, riffs and power chords that could sustain the songs all by itself. The rhythm section fills them out nicely though, and the trio sounds tight and precise.
The run-through of “Copper Blue” was met with heartily evident audience approval. Those 10 songs represent some of the strongest power pop of the 90s, and they sound as good now as they did then. Mould’s tweaking of the upbeat numbers, such that they moved at a much faster clip than the originals, left room for a greater dynamics shift when it came to moodier tracks like “The Slim.” “Copper Blue” is a well sequenced record in the first place, but with some adjustments it became an exceptionally well-paced set of live songs. Mould spoke briefly about the positives of nostalgia when it was over, adding that the future was just as good before launching into several new songs which didn’t sound a bit out of place next to the much-revered Sugar material. It was the Hüsker Dü songs tucked into the end of the main set and encore that enlivened the audience more than anything else, though. “I Apologize” and “Celebrated Summer” generated plenty of shout-alongs and even a brief attempt at a pit, which ended in a kick to the face and a narrowly avoided fistfight. It was a career-summative show for Mould, covering three decades’ worth of consistently brilliant rock and having a damn good time doing it.
Openers Cymbals Eat Guitars, whose songs seem to be getting longer and louder by the minute, proved a fitting complement to Mould’s concise fury. As last year’s “Lenses Alien” and 2009’s “Why There are Mountains” indicate, the band has a tendency toward ambitious guitar-focused rock. Pulling together influences from Pixies, Pavement, Sonic Youth and beyond, they generate peaks and valleys of noise and haze anchored by the impassioned vocals of frontman Joseph D’Agostino. Several of the set’s songs stretched out into jagged multi-part epics complete with freakout guitar maulings. Much of the audience wasn’t having it, but Cymbals Eat Guitars put on a confident and inspired opening set.
Cymbals Eat Guitars:
Bob Mould:
