[phlipcam video]: Superchunk live @ Royale

Things I did not expect to hear at the Superchunk show: a heartfelt tribute to Buffalo Tom. Sure enough, though, Mac McCaughan was up there talking about how back in the 90s, Superchunk had aspired to a "Buffalo Tom-like intensity." With all due respect to the (underrated) BuffTom, I'd say they surpassed that particular yardstick long ago.

Superchunk's appearance at the Royale last night may not have induced the same giddiness as Pavement's recent swing through town (although I was somewhat amused to see several faces in the crowd that I recognized as having been at both shows), but that was also sort of the point: even though they've been around for more than twenty years at this point, they're not a nostalgia act. They're still making relevant music in 2010, and they brought the same energy level to new songs like "My Gap Feels Weird," "Digging for Something," "Rosemarie," and "Fractures in Plaster" as they did to classics like "Slack Motherfucker," "Package Thief," "Tossing Seeds," "Hyper Enough" and the "Driveway to Driveway"/"The First Part" double-shot. Our biggest complaint: they didn't give Jon Wurster a microphone. Surely his stange banter would have been more entertaining than Jim Wilbur's.