Stephen Malkmus is a lot taller than he, uh, sounds.

Well, I couldn't pass up Jackie's invitation to this show—I'm not very familiar with Malkmus's solo work but I do like Pavement so I figured it'd be a good time. Which it was, except for the two (tall, obnoxious) idiots who tried to stroll up and plant themselves in front of us after the first opener's set. Jackie was effectively firm with them but I lost my temper and swore at them. Luckily the 2nd band, Paik, was numbingly trance-inducing, which seemed to quell the boys; they got pretty quiet and didn't try to shove back in front of us. Which was all the better for them, because I'd taken the solemn oath to kick them in the nuts—hard—if they pulled any more of that shit.

I quite enjoyed the first opener, the Changes. Most of the time the lead singer looked like he was concentrating really hard on not fucking up, but every once in a while he'd smile and then he was adorable. He had one of those apple maraca shaker thingies on his keyboard, and when somebody yelled "Eat the apple!" he immediately responded, "Shut up!" Oooh, snap!

Anyway, eventually out came Stephen. I had never seen Pavement play either so I didn't know quite what to expect. I mostly watched his hands and listened to his guitar. I love his guitar playing but I can't say anything about it; if you've heard it you know what I mean, it's simply something unto itself. But he looked like he was having a great time (and it's always more fun to see bands who are clearly enjoying the show themselves), and there was the added bonus of finding out that he's a White Sox fan (yeah! Cubs suck!!). By the way, if you were wondering—like Geddy Lee, Stephen Malkmus does indeed talk like an ordinary guy.

Afterward the security came along to shoo us away from the stage but allowed us to stand near it. The setlists got distributed, but not to me, and then the guitar tech guy took pity on me and went back and rummaged through a bunch of his stuff and brought me his own personal copy (aw, thanks, guitar tech guy!). I immediately gave it to Jackie—she'd invited me, after all—but she let me borrow it to make a scan which I include here. It's especially cool because (since it was the guitar tech's copy) it shows not only which guitar is used for each song (F[ender Jazzmaster] or G[ibson Les Paul Deluxe]), but also how it should be tuned. So if you wanted to play along to "Pencil Rot," now you know to tune your Les Paul to CGAEAD, and so on:




I'm amused that whoever wrote it felt the need to specify that stand[ard tuning] is EADGBE. Just in case we forgot.

Good show. Jackie and I also discussed plans for our TMBG summer pilgrimage '05: six shows, five days, four states...who will crack first, us or Them?