Superchunk with Versus @ South Street Seaport, NYC, Fri., July 17

POSTED: Monday, July 20, 2009, 5:00 PM

Filed Under: Music | Show concert photos

Photo | Brian Howard

Mac from Superchunk

"See you real soon."

Playing a free show with Versus at New York's South Street Seaport on Friday, indie rock legends Superchunk, the flagship band of the turning-XX Merge label, ripped off a veritable best-of set, drawing primarily from the first half of the band's catalog.

Name a hit from Superchunk, No Pocky For Kitty, On The Mouth, Foolish and Here's Where the Strings Come In or the interstitial singles and chances are Mac, Laura, Jim and Jon played it, and played the shit out of it.

Highlights included

"Driveway to Driveway," "Water Wings" and "The First Part" from Foolish.
"Detroit has a Skyline" from Strings
"Cast Iron," "Throwing Things" and "Seed Toss" from Pocky
"I Think I Remembered it Wrong" (I think) from On the Mouth
"On the Mouth" from Incidental Music

There were others but they're not springing to mind. As great as the blast from the past was, equally exciting were two rocked-out new songs: "Learned to Surf" from the recent Leaves in the Gutter EP and an as-yet unreleased single called "Crossed Wires" ("You can't touch me, I've got crossed wires, crossed wires!").

Mac, who is Superchunk's leader as well as one of the Merge label's founders, bemoaned not having the "Crossed Wires" single available for sale yet, blaming the "consistently disappointing" performance of their label.

"I think we should drop 'em," cracked Jim Wilbur, the band's dry-witted jester in a band full of them.

"We'll see you real soon," said Mac to crowd as the band put the finishing touches on its encore/anthem, "Slack Motherfucker," giving hope that the band's spare touring schedule in recent years will pick up again.

After the performance, as the crowd drifted away from the Seaport, Mac hung around the front of the stage, signing autographs and posing for pictures. It's nice that after 20 years as the hardest working band in indie rock, Mac hasn't lost his sense of humility.

Photos of Versus' opening set after the jump.

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