The Mosswood date marks the first Bay Area show in four years for Pavement. Founded in Stockton but now spread all over the country, the indie-rock stalwarts staunchly, if obtusely, reflected their Northern California roots in ragged-but-right aesthetics and songs like “Two States” and “Unfair.” (In 2022, during the band’s three-night run at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, singer Stephen Malkmus changed the lyrics during “Fillmore Jive” to take a jovial swipe at Mill Valley.)
In 2024, the band released a surreal pseudo-documentary, Pavements, that confused even their biggest fans. Concurrently, Pavement themselves have been perplexed at their obscure B-sides’ virality on Spotify and TikTok.
In addition to expanding the festival to three days, the booking also represents a slight expansion of Mosswood’s garage-punk roots, planted when the festival was known as Burger Boogaloo; previous headliners over the years include Iggy Pop, Kim Gordon, X, the Mummies and Bikini Kill. But if the crowd climbing trees and craning their necks to watch Devo through the fence last year is any indication, no one’s really being too picky about genre.
