Pavement Perform “Greenlander” for the First Time in 34 Years

Pavement’s short summer tour has been loose and cover-heavy: a deadpan “Stairway to Heaven” in Oakland, a medley with Neil Young’s “Down by the River” in Seattle, and Led Zeppelin reprised in Chicago. In Cleveland, the comedy took a backseat to a genuine rarity. At the Agora Ballroom on Thursday, the band played “Greenlander” for the first time since 1992.

The song, an outtake from the Watery, Domestic EP, later appeared on the 1993 compilation Born to Choose and the expanded Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe. Malkmus revived it at a pair of solo shows last year, but the full band hadn’t touched it in 34 years. In Cleveland, it surfaced mid-set; later, a brief Pink Floyd “Lucifer Sam” snippet bled out of “Half a Canyon.”

The tour wraps with two nights at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium this week, then a Shaky Knees festival set in Atlanta in September. These shows are less a grand return than a loose, semi-permanent reunion — one where the jokes stay fresh and the deep cuts, eventually, get their due.