The Lemonheads
The Troubadour
Filter Grade: 92%
by Ewan J Anderson | 01.01.2007

Evan Dando is still prettier than you. The alt-poster boy of the 90’s is back, and with a full ten years between 1996’s Car Button Cloth and this year’s Vagrant release The Lemonheads, you’d expect him to have at least aged a little. But somehow, despite everything, he still looks pretty much like he did in 1996. Likewise, The Lemonheads music has changed about as little. The songs on the admittedly ‘retro’ sounding new album would have fit just as well on It’s A Shame About Ray as they do on a completely new album.

Nevertheless, no matter how good the songs on the new album are, the concert-goers at last week’s Troubadour show didn’t come looking for new material. They were original Lemonheads fans that grew up with the band, listened to Ray every day in junior high and made out to "Into Your Arms." Fortunately Dando is just as affectionate towards the old material as the fans themselves and dealt out a veritable wish-list of early material like "Confetti" and "The Great Big No" that segued perfectly into new songs "Black Gown" and "Become The Enemy."

The ’06 material was particularly well received; "Let’s Just Laugh," possibly the most charming song to criticize the Bush Administration ("Let’s just laugh / we can never do anything, anyway") drew cheers from the crowd, as did relationship drama "Rule Of 3." Never the most verbose of performers, Dando kept the onstage banter to a minimum of thanks and song introductions, and very sweetly accepted the biggest cheers of the night for simply removing his overcoat.

The only twinge of longing for The Lemonheads of years ago came on songs like "It’s About Time" and "Drug Buddy." The songs themselves sounded as fresh and capricious as they did at the time, but without Juliana Hatfield’s saccharine backing vocals to balance out Dando’s countrified croon, they lost a touch of the sweetness that made them so special. The Lemonheads’ bass and drum seats have always featured a constantly revolving cast of characters, but Hatfield made certain songs and her absence was felt.

Dando rounded out the show with a solo acoustic set featuring Lovey’s "Ride With Me", "Into Your Arms" and a heartbreaking "Favorite T." It’s here that Dando’s talent is laid bare; he writes simple, catchy, heart rendering pop songs that everyone can relate to and sing along to. Even early songs like the punky "Clang Bang Clang" become pop lullabies.

Bringing the band back on, the nearly two-hour, fan pleasing set closed with "Rudderless" again reminding the crowd just how strikingly similar The Lemonheads ’06 are to The Lemonheads ’96 and what a great thing that is. Our long lost love has returned.