We know, we know. It's not a break-up. It's an indefinite hiatus. But doesn't that just mean, "Breaking up sounds too divisive, and we're kinda done, but we don't want anyone to accuse us of cashing in on the whole 'reunion' bandwagon if we do decide to play again. Plus we all like each other and think we'll probably miss playing together in a few years, and we know the fans will want us to play again, too." That is what it means, right? Is anyone from Fugazi reading this?

Surely, a show that is the last for the foreseeable future, quite possibly the last ever, would have some marker to set it apart. It would be extra long. Extra loud. Extra tearful. Extra something. They wouldn't go out without playing "Call the Doctor" and especially not without "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone," would they? But they did. For much of Sleater-Kinney's show at the 9:30 Club Thursday night, rescheduled in a hurry after the Fire Marshall cancelled Tuesday's show, it felt like another go-round of their 2005 tour for The Woods. In fact, they played all ten songs from that record, comprising well over half of the main set.

Watching the band play, it's no small wonder they're still so attached to that record. The material on The Woods finally showed, in recorded form, what the band had already become in live shows for quite a while: a lean and muscular rock and roll machine. Calling them a punk band had long ago become a wildly inadequate description. With The Woods, Sleater-Kinney finally had songs that fit the lengthy instrumental interplay (I'm going to refrain from using the "J"-word here out of respect) they'd been moving towards on stage. Thursday, as in their tour last year, the band seemed most at home locked in a tight triangle, playing off one another's cues, performing in a practice space that just happened to have a thousand excitable fans in it.

The only acknowledgement that there was any special significance to the show came near the end, as Carrie gave thanks to their DC friends and fans that have come out so many times in the past. And that was it, on with the music.

Photo by Flickr user (hannie)

Some may lament the lack of defining moments in the show. Sure, Janet broke her snare during the encore, requiring Corin and Carrie to launch into an unplanned performance of the drum-less "Buy Her Candy" while she replaced it. But I think Janet has broken a head in nearly half their shows I've been to, so that hardly qualifies as unusual. Neither were there any surprising covers this time around, to match the eclectic choices of past tours, that have ranged from Creedence's "Fortunate Son" to Danzig's "Mother." Granted, coming back out for a second encore even after the 9:30 had started music on the P.A. was something I've never seen before. But still, there were no tearful farewells, no reaching back for rarely played old material. Perhaps those will be reserved for the final shows in Portland next week.

And maybe that's how they wanted it. For a band who were once small enough to be able to stand in the audience of the old Black Cat and watch their opening acts while barely even being approached by timid fans, any fanfare would seem disingenuous. In the end, it was just the three of them as it's been for years: Corin's fierce singing punctuated by the occasional shy smile, Carrie bounding around the stage in her own rock-star acrobatic show, all kicks and leaps and windmills, with Janet pounding savagely behind. Sleater-Kinney, playing the songs they really dig playing these days and leaving everyone in the room desperate for more.

For those who couldn't attend, NPR's All Things Considered has an unedited recording of the entire concert available to listen to online, and a set of great photos on Flickr.