Bob Mould played Paradise Rock Club – 9/16
Punk and alt-rock icon Bob Mould and his band opened their fall tour at the Paradise on Thursday night.
Mould might be the only guy out there these days playing his own songs faster and harder now than when he released them a decade or three ago. The former Hüsker Dü and Sugar singer/guitarist and longtime solo practitioner rolled into Boston last week with fury to burn for the start of his first “post”-pandemic tour, joined by longtime bandmates Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster. A well of pent-up energy propelled the trio through a set that crammed nearly 30 songs into 90 minutes – a pace that “breathless” doesn’t quite capture – spanning from Dü to last year’s Blue Hearts.
That latest batch of songs, Mould’s fifth for Merge Records with his current power trio and closest in spirit to his breakneck punk roots in some years, lends itself to the approach. Plenty of those tunes – themselves a reflection of feeling fed up with the general state of everything – saw ferocious live debuts that set them comfortably next to the the likes of an impassioned “Something I Learned Today.” Even the pair of sunny, melodic Copper Blue-era Sugar cuts kept in the repertoire (“If I Can’t Change Your Mind,” “Hoover Dam”) felt faster and heavier than usual, as if the momentum of the show simply wouldn’t stand for a more muted tempo. When Mould finally said his thanks and departed the stage after “Makes No Sense At All” (song 27 of the night), an encore didn’t even feel like something the crowd, in an ear-ringing daze, could take.
Mould has long displayed excellent taste in opening acts (tours past have brought Ted Leo, Screaming Females and Cymbals Eat Guitars along for the ride), and this time around was no different. Melodic Nova Scotian shoegazers Kestrels brought their own dose of volume to the room for a well-received set – their first in Massachusetts since a now-legendary secret show in an Amherst bike shop with Dinosaur Jr. five years back. Pretty good MA track record.
Scroll below for photos from both sets.
