Oakland, CA’s Mosswood Meltdown has expanded to a three-day occasion for 2026, and final night time it kicked off with a Pre-Social gathering that includes Christina’s Journey, Memo PST, Vivian Women, Wednesday, and headliners Pavement. It was the ’90s indie icons’ first present since November, so we’re now within the fifth calendar yr of their second reunion period.
Onstage in Mosswood Park, Pavement dropped an surprising cowl halfway by way of the set, following the algo-revived, Gen Z-beloved “Harness Your Hopes.” They tried the fifth and sixth verses of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven,” with Stephen Malkmus singing all incorrect lyrics. Effectively, virtually all: It seems like he obtained in a “piper” and a “wind,” however he additionally sang “I like mangos” and “I want I had rehearsed these lyrics slightly higher.”
Beforehand, with the Jicks in Columbia, MO again in 2012, Malkmus partially lined “The Ocean” from Homes Of The Holy. And on the cusp of COVID lockdown in 2020, he controversially ranked the tracks on Led Zeppelin IV (aka ZoSo), inserting “Stairway” at #3. (California issued the nation’s first stay-at-home order the subsequent day. Coincidence?)
This is how Moswood host John Waters (to not be confused with Zeppelin bootlegger John Waters) launched Pavement final night time:
These soft-liner, lo-fi, slacker-scuzz headliners trigger extra mayhem in ticket gross sales than another band we have ever introduced in 10 years. My cellphone has been ringing off the hook just like the day Kurt Cobain died and my scheduled MTV profile obtained canceled resulting from his tv tributes.
I am from Baltimore they usually’re from Stockton. So we share a historical past of dwelling in cities which can be usually battling one another for essentially the most depressing or violent. However be glad, assume who’s lived in Stockton: Chris Isaac, Janet Leigh in Psycho, and yeah, Squeaky Fromme. I inform the politicians in Baltimore, be pleased with our notoriety. Put a brand new bumper sticker out that claims “The Wire: It is Even Worse Now.” This band has been known as the cock and balls of indie rock. And so they virtually invented the time period alternate.
They toured with Sonic Youth, performed Lollapalooza, and even starred in a really cool meta mockumentary movie about their tour. Sure, they’re good, they’re witty, they usually took the suburb out of suburbia and made it elegant. The Nineties: I used to be already previous then, however you were not. However now you might be. “Reduce Your Hair.” Crooked Rain. Oh, youth. However guess what? You will by no means get it again. However here is the subsequent neatest thing.
Pavement!
Watch fan movies from Mosswood under.
