Yo La Tengo played Columbus Theatre – 9/18

Indie rock lifers Yo La Tengo brought their fall tour to a sold-out Columbus Saturday night.

“Never miss a Yo La Tengo gig” is a good, sturdy rule to live by. No matter how many times you’ve caught the legendary Hoboken trio on stage, there’s always something new, unexpected, delightful about their performances. Saturday night’s headliner in Providence – my first YLT show since the distant memory of 2019’s Hanukkah run – was naturally no different.

As is their modus operandi in recent years, the band traveled sans opener and played a serene acoustic-ish set followed by a much more fuzz-drenched one, packing both with gems spanning their prolific three-and-a-half decades. Things kicked off with a supremely dreamy “Green Arrow” before touching on fan favorites (“Sugar Cube,” “Deeper Into Movies”) and some true deep cuts (“Fog Over Frisco,” “Shaker,” “Drug Test”) over the course of a couple unhurried hours. Set two’s long-jam conclusion reached for “Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind” to showcase a classic, way-out-there Ira Kaplan guitar mauling, preceding an encore trio of Troggs, Jackson Browne and Beach Boys covers to bring the evening to a proper close.

I’ll be at the Woodsist festival this weekend to catch another YLT set Saturday night, and I’m already positive it’ll be an entirely different and equally spellbinding beast. In the meantime, check out a gallery from last weekend’s proceedings below.