The Hard Quartet Live - 2025-01-25 Northcote Theatre, Melbourne, Australia [24-Bit CLF Tape] - Бесплатная аудиокнига

Opening up the books for 2025 with a supergroup show, this time from the Hard Quartet - members have played with such esteemed acts as Pavement, the Dirty Three, Bonnie Prince Billy, Chavez, Ty Segall, et cetera. Their 15-song debut record came out last year, but I can't make any comments on it, because I haven't heard it; I went to this show on a whim and I ultimately wasn't disappointed.

I'd missed Pavement when they came to Melbourne on their reunion tour, and so when this band opened with a Malkmus-led song I was more than happy that I'd gotten on board here. The easiest thing to say about this is that it's a band doing a simple thing really well; they don't get into too many weird adventures (the ten-minute centrepiece excepted here) but they're an effective rock outfit. Many of the songs are indebted to the 90s slacker rock thing, but they occasionally dip into a more casual 70s folk-country type thing and that really serves them well. The front three members all took turns on vocals and bass (there was an extremely busy stagehand coming on after every song to grab someone's guitar after they no longer needed it), and each took their turns in the spotlight; Malkmus probably sang lead on half of the songs (and stole the show on some others) but Kelly and Sweeney did their part as well. Jim White even gets one line during 'Action for Military Boys' when Malkmus ran the microphone over to him mid-song.

Their few bits of talk between songs alternated between self-promotion for upcoming solo sets and playing around with the crowd - Malkmus dedicated the show to tennis player Madison Keys, who was competing in the Australian Open final that night and won the match just a few minutes before the Hard Quartet came on stage. They wrapped the show up a couple of minutes before 11, with most of the crowd not wanting to move - they'd played every song off the album, so there was no encore, but I think we all wished there was just a little more.

Track listing:

1. [intro]

2. Heel Highway

3. Rio's Song

4. Our Hometown Boy

5. Renegade

6. Earth Hater

7. Killed by Death

8. Hey

9. It Suits You

10. Six Deaf Rats

11. Action for Military Boys

12. Jacked Existence

13. North of the Border

14. Gripping the Riptide

15. Thug Dynasty

16. [band introductions]

17. Chrome Mess

All from The Hard Quartet.