If you were drinking Hopslam with me late one night 3 years ago and in between runs to the jukebox to pay a dollar to hear tracks by Lisa Loeb or James, you drunkenly asked, “Matt, if you could see two bands reunite, who would they be?”, I’d take a long sip of the ‘Slam and without doubt my answer would be “Pavement and Archers of Loaf”. Right now we’re 1 for 2, perhaps close to 2 for 2. No F’ing way indeed.
UPDATE: In my overly excited state I forgot to include links, so just in case: More reunion videos, a write-up of the show by The Vine, and a random Merge Records forum post claiming “they’re going to play more this summer” — a reunion wouldn’t be complete without some message board rumormongering. This would be incredible if true. The set list from the show:
Audiowhore
Harnessed in Slums
Revenge
Nostalgia
Lowest Part is Free
Freezing Point
Greatest of All Time
You and Me
Might
Web in Front
Wrong
Slow Worm
Solid. Also, !!!!!!!!!!
Hot damn! This is grade A dish, Matt. Don’t know about you, but I absolutely cooked my voice screaming at Pavement, and it was like a week later before I was back to good (ten pts for MB20 ref). God knows how long Bachmann et al. will lay me low.
No kidding. I’ll be honest, before seeing the videos the idea of an Archers of Loaf reunion just didn’t seem possible in terms of sound. Eric Bachmann’s solo stuff and Crooked Fingers’ output has been pretty tame, and they don’t have a Bob Nastanovich to keep things rocking. But after watching the video, I was unbelievably wrong. They look really good — really, REALLY good. “Harnessed in the Slums” sounds perfect.