Bob Mould arrived on stage Friday at Metro and grappled momentarily with a balky guitar. “I haven’t played one note and it’s already blown up,” he said. It was to be that kind of night.
For the next 80 breathless minutes, the Mould express roared through 24 songs. Even band introductions were conducted hurriedly, as if there was no time to waste on such niceties.
With Jason Narducy on bass and Jon Wurster on drums, Mould is back in his natural habitat: a power trio. He sprinkled songs from his previous trios, Husker Du (from the ’80s) and Sugar (the ’90s) amid tracks from his three most recent albums, recorded with Narducy and Wurster, and he moved fluidly among the eras represented by the three combos.
Stylistically these threesomes varied widely: Husker Du’s splashy chaos contrasted with Sugar’s taut discipline. Mould-Wurster-Narducy slides somewhere between those extremes, with a mix of propulsion and ornamentation, particularly in Wurster’s use of fills to color the songs. And Mould has never had a harmony singer quite like Narducy in his previous bands. His counterpoint lines underlined the melodies in “Changes,” “You Say You,” “See a Little Light,” even Husker Du’s hardcore classic “In a Free Land.” The latter — the oldest song in the set list, from 1983 — locked into a blitz tempo, capped by a speed metal solo, but still sounded like a pop song, and in a sense Mould has followed that template in his songwriting ever since.
The guitarist spun his bearish frame on one foot, as if being knocked around by the hurricane force of his solos. The notes poured out in thick, hyperspeed flurries. His attack conjured a 10-car pileup of tones and overtones, an orchestra of reverberation. There were two speeds –- fast and fastest -– as the bespectacled 55-year-old blended the blast-furnace intensity of hardcore with classic pop hooks.
Heavier, more deliberate tempos provided contrast in “Voices in In My Head” and “Come Around.” Then there was the monumental “Hardly Getting Over It,” which built from a sparse, almost hushed solo performance into an anthemic guitar solo with the band –- Mould’s “Purple Rain.”
After that song, it was only fitting that the encore would provide a rare lighter note — Husker Du’s bouncy “Hate Paper Doll” and a reprise of the Husker cover of “Love is All Around.” Yes, that’s the theme song from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
“You’re gonna make it after all,” Mould sang, despite his best efforts to crush everything in his path.
Bob Mould set list Friday at Metro:
A Good Idea (Sugar song)
Changes (Sugar song)
The End of Things
The Descent
I Don’t Know You Anymore
You Say You
Voices In My Head
Hold On
If I Can’t Change Your Mind (Sugar song)
Hey Mr. Grey
Hoover Dam (Sugar song)
See a Little Light
Could You Be the One? (Husker Du song)
I Apologize (Husker Du song)
Come Around (Sugar song)
Tomorrow Morning
Losing Time
Something I Learned Today (Husker Du song)
In a Free Land (Husker Du song)
Hardly Getting Over It (Husker Du song)
Celebrated Summer (Husker Du song)
Encore:
Hate Paper Doll (Husker Du song)
Love is All Around (Husker Du song)
Makes No Sense at All (Husker Du song)
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