It’s been nine years since Stephen Malkmus and the members of Pavement last reunited to play some tunes, rock some shows, and—as is their wont—bedevil the gentle mental equilibrium of one William Corgan, cat enthusiast. Now Picthfork reports that the band that “Summer Babe” built will be getting back together for a pair of shows at next year’s Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona and Porto.
Pavement last got together for a world-spanning reunion tour in 2010; when asked about the possibility of another get-together earlier this month, Malkmus dubbed the possibility “realistic,” and, obviously, he wasn’t kidding around.
The band (Malkmus, long-time collaborator Scott Kannberg, bassist Mark Ibold, drummer Steve West, and percussionist Bob Nastanovich) released five studio albums between 1992 and 1999, earning a passionate fan following and a series of extended critical love letters from the likes of Robert Christgau, before flaming out in a pretty typical burst of exhausted acrimony and wounded egos. The reunion tour (and its accompanying best-of compilation) were successful in a sort of “Hey, let’s do this again in nine years” sort of way, though, so, you know, here we are.