Fresh off of deflating the latest round of Pavement reunion rumors, Stephen Malkmus, aka “the slacker prince of 1990s indie rock”, hit the road touring behind his latest release Real Emotional Trash. The tour pulled into D.C Friday night with opener and all-around good guy John Vanderslice serving as the opener.

This was the first time I’d seen Mr. Malkmus since the tour behind Pavement’s last album, Terror Twilight, which was, admittedly, many moons ago. His stage presence hasn’t changed much — he’s still chatty as hell in between songs, at one point encouraging everyone to “take drugs, don’t gamble” and calling one song “The Caron Butler blues” — and the tunes aren’t that dissimilar, but Malkmus is now front and center taking on the role of guitar hero. One of Pavement’s most overlooked qualities were the way they could stretch one of their 3 minute pop songs into jams long enough to make a Widespread fan take notice, something that is now on full display. The jams flowed freely and stretched out into the night, but never really picked up any steam. The set seemed to meander along at a leisurely place, never noticeably speeding up or slowing down.

Local-boy Vanderslice turned in a set of his low-end political pop that at least got some heads nodding. He gave numerous shout outs to his mom, and told fans to meet him at a vegetarian place on Rockville Pike at 2 p.m. on Saturday. His bassist Daniel also delighted the crowd with an impromptu run through to the chorus of Phil Collins’ “Billy Don’t You Lose My Number.” Vanderslice took his band into the crowd for his last song, performing “Time to Go” in the middle of the 9:30 floor, a move better in concept than execution as it was impossible to hear anything unless you were in the direct vicinity. Still, he gets an “A” for effort.

NPR was in the house and is currently streaming the show on their website.

Photos by Kyle Gustafson