I adore Pavement. I just about peed myself when I found out they were going to be playing Osheaga. My fangirlish excitement had been trampled upon during the Stars set, but with the first jangly strums of “Gold Soundz”, Pavement reignited every ounce of anticipation that I had built up over months of waiting.

Even though on a logical level knew that I was hanging out on some gravelly terrain in Quebec, on an atmospheric, lost-to-the-music sort of way, the experience of seeing Pavement live was an intensified version of what I generally experience when I listen to their albums. It’s a beautiful feeling of having been transported to Midwest America–blue skies, beckoning highways and carefree summer days rolling endlessly on.

And it’s not just that Pavement’s music is still every bit as viscerally satisfying as I assume it was when they were young sprites, because a big part of the awesome of this set was how cool these guys seem. Even when some disrespectful idiot in the crowd launched a beer bomb that exploded over Stephen Malkmus’ head, completely drenching him down to the waist, Malkmus only faltered for a moment before a) speculating that the beer was of a Labatt-y nature, and then b) bringing a corner of the soaked shirt to his mouth for a taste, confirming that he had in fact been targeted by a Labatt drinker with excellent aim. But nobody in the band seemed significantly bothered. After singling out the culprit (to a wave of loyal boo’s from the crowd) and some silly taunts about how the beer-launcher would be going home in a Montreal ambulance, Pavement dug back into their set almost immediately after. I loved them all the more for it.

I can’t remember if I read this in Rob Sheffield’s book Love is a Mixtape, or if it came about in a Pavement-based conversation I had with my guitar teacher a couple years back, but at some point, somebody/somebook expressed the sentiment that Pavement started losing fans when they started becoming more technically skilled musicians. While I can certainly see how the sloppy charm of Pavement could be hindered by overly-polished playing, after seeing them live I am of the opinion that their improved technical skill absolutely does not take away from the boyish tomfoolery of their music. Malkmus is still a lanky, goofy dude singing about how pigs look when they walk. Scott Kannberg is still of questionable sanity, a guy who hurtles himself around the stage and screams fantastic nonsense into microphones. Pavement are seasoned band who act like a loveably new-to-it-all band.

Throughout their tragically short one hour set, Pavement proved over and over again that they have undeniably still got it. This wasn’t a lacklustre reunion show by a band past their prime. Rather, Pavement breathed new life into beloved songs that never lost their spark to begin with. They moved through well-established crowd pleasers (“Stereo”, “Range Life”, “Stop Breathin’”, “Cut Your Hair”), surprise numbers that I hadn’t expected and was all the more thrilled to hear (“Starlings of the Slipstream”, “Fin”), and rounded everything out nicely by ending the set with the poignantly be-fitting “Here”, Malkmus’ talk/sing voice taking things to a bittersweet close with the line “Everything’s ending here.”

Gold sounds indeed.