Superchunk, Cable Ties

Superchunk @ Ardmore Music Corridor, Ardmore, PA, September 10, 2023,

Sep 13, 2023
By Matthew Berlyant
Pictures by Matthew Berlyant
Internet Unique

After their quieter, moodier, pandemic-inspired 2022 album Wild Loneliness got here out, Superchunk went by way of a significant line-up change. Particularly, long-time drummer Jon Wurster left the band earlier this 12 months after thirty years. Satirically, this tour is ostensibly for the thirtieth anniversary of their 1993 absolute basic On the Mouth, their first to function Wurster on drums (he has performed on all of their subsequent albums). Nonetheless, his alternative Laura King (of the band Bat Fangs and others together with Speedstick) is an ideal match, nailing each single half completely and bringing her personal model and swagger to the proceedings as effectively. Generally, when a band is dealt a blow of a long-time member leaving, they want new blood to refresh them, and refreshed they positive have been.

Merely put, this present ROCKED because the band turned the usually staid, laid-back venue right into a punk rock membership. Opening with the title observe (sarcastically, once more, not on the album however the B-side of the “Mower” single, which additionally they performed the A-side of just some songs later), which I had additionally seen them do in 2010 at my request (lengthy story) on the now gone Trocadero in Philadelphia correct, the hour and a half lengthy set (which additionally featured a five-song encore) by no means let up for a second. Singer/guitarist Mac MacCaughan remains to be a human pogo stick, even on the age of fifty-six nonetheless leaping round far more than musicians half his age, and the set was served effectively by concentrating on materials from On the Mouth (at least seven songs have been performed from the album) however spanning their total profession as effectively.

The highlights have been many, from the aforementioned “Mower” and different On the Mouth classics like “For Rigidity” and “Precision Auto,” which they saved for the penultimate tune within the rousing encore, all the way in which to extra trendy materials like “Low F” (from 2013’s underrated I Hate Music) and “Black Thread” from 2018’s What a Time to Be Alive and two songs from 2010’s comeback album and career-best Majesty Shredding (the only “Realized to Surf” and “My Hole Feels Bizarre,” certainly one of their easiest songs). It was noticeable that just about all the materials was sped up by no less than one-and-a-half instances the pace of the recorded variations, however with out dropping any of the melodic sense that they’re recognized for as effectively. By the tip of it, concluding with one other rousing model of an On the Mouth tune (the closing observe “The Solely Piece that You Can Get”), it felt exhilarating, like an exhale after an hour-long thrill trip down the Autobahn. What a present!

Tour openers and Merge signees Cable Ties are from Melbourne (Australia) and are on the additionally venerable Poison Metropolis label and have been additionally improbable. Positive, on paper their post-punk revivalisms have been finished many instances earlier than, however hardly ever with this a lot ardour, coronary heart, and an intangible punk rock vitality that was palpable from the primary second of their efficiency. In these methods, they jogged my memory just a little of their Melbourne forbearers Love of Diagrams, who have been energetic within the 2000s, and who I as soon as noticed completely flooring the gang opening for Ted Leo in 2007 on the TLA.

Guitarist Nick Brown wore a shirt that includes the enduring cowl of The Clear’s Boodle Boodle Boodle EP and positive sufficient, their closing tune was that EP’s “Level that Factor Someplace Else,” a stone-cold indie basic. Whereas on report, vocalist and guitarist Jenny McKechnie sounds rather a lot just like the late Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, that is much less obvious reside as effectively. I don’t know what’s within the water in Melbourne, nevertheless it’s produced extra nice bands within the final twenty years or so than another metropolis on the planet apart from maybe Philadelphia. I hope that lasts eternally, to be trustworthy.