LIVE: Bob Mould Runs Through Every Era Of A 25-Year Career
Tuesday March 11, 2008 @ 03:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

March 10, 2008
Mod Club
Toronto, Ontario
by Steve McLean

The last Canadian Music Week performance I saw ended after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, and I won't catch my first band at South By Southwest until early Wednesday afternoon. The between-music festival blues were starting to kick in and I needed a live music fix. Luckily, Bob Mould was playing a 20-minute walk from my house at the Mod Club on Monday night to provide a remedy.

But first I had to catch 15 minutes of San Francisco's Halou — a quintet fronted by a young woman in a prom dress. Her somewhat ethereal voice could have benefited from backing harmonies, and the band's music seemed to drone on a bit without really going anywhere. You can say Halou, but I was happy to say goodbye.

Mould walked on stage at 10:15 p.m. along with a bassist, keyboard player and drummer. The 47-year-old singer/guitarist has lost a lot of weight and looks almost buff enough to get in the ring with some of the wrestlers he used to write scripts for when he took some time off from music a decade ago.

"The Act We Act," from Mould's early '90s band Sugar, opened the set. "A Good Idea," one of Sugar's best known (and possibly best) song, followed — and was played faster than on record. The vintage aggressive rock sound was still evident, which was a good omen for what was to come.

A track from the solo catalogue, "I Hate Alternative Rock," was ironically succeeded by Mould's 1989 alternative rock hit, "See A Little Light," which had more edge and power than the original. Another Sugar standout, "Hoover Dam," kept the momentum flowing for one more song before Mould tossed off a few less vital tunes from his somewhat disappointing new solo effort, District Line. Sugar's "Your Favorite Thing" was the high point of the mild mid-show lull, which prompted an audience member to tell Mould to speed things up.

"I age faster than the guy who wants me to play faster," said Mould with a smile. Although he looked happy, that sentence was the most he spoke all night. But the man gets so much out of his guitar, and plays it so loudly, that it eliminates the need for much between-song chatter since it would take sensitive ears a bit of time to adjust to the lower volume, anyway.

If the crowd was dragged down a bit by this point, it was instantly jolted back to delirious joy by a trio of Husker Du songs: New Day Rising's classic "I Apologize," which was done brilliantly; the same album's "Celebrated Summer;" and Flip Your Wig's "Divide And Conquer," which ended the main set.

After a very short time offstage, the quartet returned for "Moving Trucks," where keyboardist Richard Morel (who DJs with Mould under the name Blowoff) played his most noticeable role of the night and helped get heads bobbing on the club floor. That was followed by a different arrangement of Sugar's "If I Can't Change Your Mind," which didn't live up to the original.

The group walked off again, but were back before you knew it to play "Egoverride" and one last incredible Husker Du mainstay, "Makes No Sense At All." It was a fitting conclusion, as I was initially undecided if it still made sense to see Mould in 2008. But after Monday's show, I easily concluded it does.