After a long-awaited twelve-year hiatus from the last time that they reunited to perform, Pavement made their return visit to Austin to record an ACL TV taping for the 48th season of the beloved musical television show, Austin City Limits. The one-hour taping on Monday, October 10th was also streamed live on YouTube and marked the next-to-last date in Pavement’s 2022 tour run, which included 24 sold-out shows across the entire United States.
Playing music spanning over their five main studio albums as well as the recent viral TikTok hit single “Harness Your Hopes” off the 1999 EP, Spit On a Stranger, Pavement took the entire Moody Theater full of loyal fans on a fantastic musical journey of some of the 1990’s best indie rock. Mainstay hits such as “Stereo”, “Summer Babe” and “Grounded” were met with extreme enthusiasm and exhilaration as the audience sang along dutifully to every song.
Before going into the final few songs of their taping set, lead singer and primary songwriter Stephen Malkmus exclaimed “I think we got 26 minutes in!,” and reminded the content, mostly-older crowd that the band would be playing another show, “Downstairs in the chicken shack in an hour!” For the 350 fans lucky enough to have secured a ticket to the sold-out show a level below from where the taping was held, Pavement would put on another 20+ song set that included no repeats from their taping, including “Conduit For Sale!”.
