Most bands whose catalogs are armed with an iconic, fan-favorite, era-defining song might reasonably elect to bring down a house with it as an encore finale. Then again, if you’re touring in celebration of the anniversary of an iconic, fan-favorite, era-defining album on which that song was famously the second track, well, you’ll just have to play it second.
Thirty years after the release of seminal indie-alt-grunge-whatever record Last Splash introduced “college-radio” fans to what all Kim Deal could do if given more creative freedom than Frank Black would ostensibly allow, the Breeders brought their live rendition to the Philly Fillmore, top-to-bottom, starting with “New Year,” ending with “Roi’s” reprise – and unleashing “Cannonball” almost right out the gates, with its buoyant sidewinder of a riff that still evokes that hopeful strawberry-red promise of early-90s rock-and-roll on the rise.
Luckily, Last Splash is of course not short on crowd-pleasers, including two more hit singles (“Divine Hammer” and “Saints”), and a number of other well-loved deeper cuts like “Do You Love Me Now” and their cover of Ed’s Redeeming Qualities’ 1988 “anti-folk” ballad “Drivin’ On 9.” Deal and co. returned to the stage too, following a quick encore break, with six more songs, split evenly between their most recent record – 2018’s All Nerve – and their underappreciated debut Pod, landing on the lumbered stomp of “Iris” from the latter.
Review and Photography by: Joshua Pelta-Heller