In 2015, when Stephen Colbert was taking over The Late Show from David Letterman, someone from his team put out an invite: Pavement, who had not performed together since their 2010 reunion tour, should get back together to help inaugurate the new Colbert show. Pavement member Bob Nastanovich talked about the tentative plan on a podcast back then, but it never came to pass. Another Pavement reunion did occur eventually, starting in 2022 and continuing through some limited engagements late last year. And now, a decade after that initial invite, Pavement have finally played Stephen Colbert's Late Show.
Since last fall, Pavements, Alex Ross Perry's absurd, slippery, loving genre-hybrid Pavement documentary, has been in the midst of an excruciatingly slow rollout. The movie is finally out in some markets, with wide release to follow on June 6, which occasioned Pavement's performance Thursday night at the Ed Sullivan Theater. Bernie Sanders was the other guest, meaning this was the greatest Late Show of all time for a certain type of person.
Pavement's last late night performance before this was a visit to Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in 2010 to play "Unfair." Before that, they famously goofed their way through "Cut Your Hair" on Jay Leno's Tonight Show back in 1994. This time they of course chose to perform "Harness Your Hopes," the late-career B-side that has become their biggest song after going viral on Spotify and TikTok. The song even became Pavement's first ever gold record — the plaque arrived this week — and no, the other RIAA awards seen in Pavements are not real.
These days every time some new Pavement performance is announced, it seems like it might be their last. If the Late Show gig was their finale, it was a fitting one. They were as shambolic, off-kilter, and charming as ever. Watch below.
In other Pavements news, the movie's official soundtrack was announced Thursday. It has 41 tracks encompassing all facets of the movie, including Pavement live recordings, bits of music and dialogue from Joe Keery's method-acting-as-Stephen-Malkmus plotline, and performances from Slanted! Enchanted!, the half-serious Pavement jukebox musical Perry staged in 2022 to push the movie to surreal new heights. We are still trying to confirm whether the first track, "Intro For A Major Motion Picture," is the new Pavement song Spiral Stairs talked about last December UPDATE: Nope, that's just 25 seconds of noise. The refenced "new" song is a studio rehearsal of the "Witchi Tai-To" cover they played in concert in 2022 and 2023.
Pavements opens nationwide 6/6.
