{"id":403710,"date":"2026-07-18T19:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403710\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T19:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:05:07","slug":"watch-pavement-play-hilariously-mangled-stairway-to-heaven-cover-in-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403710\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Pavement play hilariously mangled \u2018Stairway To Heaven\u2019 cover in Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pavement<\/a>\u00a0returned to the road last night with a\u00a0hilariously\u00a0ramshackle cover of\u00a0Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Stairway To Heaven\u2019 \u2013 watch footage below.<\/p>\n

The legendary US indie band performed at the official pre-party for Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland, California yesterday (July 17), marking their first live show since appearing at Mexico City\u2019s Hipnosis Festival in November.<\/p>\n

Hosted by cult filmmaker John Waters, the event also featured sets from Wednesday <\/a>and Vivian Girls<\/a>\u00a0ahead of the main festival this weekend, which is being headlined by\u00a0Iggy Pop <\/a>and\u00a0Bikini Kill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Midway through\u00a0their\u00a0set,\u00a0Stephen Malkmus<\/a> and co. followed \u2018Harness Your Hopes\u2019 with an unexpected partial rendition of the 1971 Zeppelin classic. Malkmus largely abandoned the original words in favour of half-improvised lyrics as he and Scott Kannberg loosely noodled their way through the track.<\/p>\n

Check out\u00a0fan-captured\u00a0footage\u00a0of the performance below.<\/p>\n

The show\u00a0came at the start of\u00a0a run of US dates for the band, which continues tonight (July 18) at Portland\u2019s Revolution Hall.\u00a0Find the remaining dates below and visit\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for tickets.<\/p>\n

Pavement\u2019s remaining 2026 US dates are:\u00a0<\/p>\n

JULY\u00a0
18 \u2013 Portland, OR \u2013 Revolution Hall\u00a0
19 \u2013 Seattle, WA \u2013 Woodland Park Zoo\u00a0
21 \u2013 St. Paul, MN \u2013 Palace Theatre\u00a0
22 \u2013 Chicago, IL \u2013 The Salt Shed\u00a0
23 \u2013 Cleveland, OH \u2013 Agora Theatre\u00a0
24 \u2013 Philadelphia, PA \u2013 Dell Music Center\u00a0
25 \u2013 Richmond, VA \u2013 The National\u00a0
27 \u2013 Nashville, TN \u2013 Ryman Auditorium\u00a0
28 \u2013 Nashville, TN \u2013 Ryman Auditorium\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year,\u00a0the band released their first newly recorded music in more than 25 years with a cover of Jim Pepper\u2019s \u2018Witchitai-To\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The track was captured during rehearsals for\u00a0their 2022 reunion tour<\/a>, where it became a regular fixture in their setlists, and appeared on the soundtrack to Alex Ross Perry\u2019s unconventional film\u00a0Pavements<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The part-documentary, part-biopic project blended footage of the band preparing for their reunion tour with the creation of a Pavement museum exhibition, a jukebox musical titled Slanted! Enchanted!\u00a0and a fictional Hollywood biopic.<\/p>\n

Stranger Things<\/a>\u00a0star\u00a0Joe Keery<\/a>\u00a0played\u00a0Malkmus in the film-within-the-film, with Jason Schwartzman appearing as the band\u2019s manager.<\/p>\n

In a four-star review of\u00a0Pavements<\/a>,\u00a0NME\u00a0wrote:\u00a0\u201cIn short, this is a thrillingly creative music documentary that serves as a loving tribute to the band and the sense of fun that Perry is having behind the camera is both palpable and infectious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pavement initially reunited for an extensive run of shows in 2022, including dates across the UK,\u00a0Ireland\u00a0and Europe.\u00a0Speaking to\u00a0NME\u00a0that year<\/a>, the band reflected on the unexpected resurgence of \u2018Harness Your Hopes\u2019,\u00a0which found a new audience after going viral on TikTok.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a weird cultural thing, but by putting yourself out there, you have the opportunity for that to happen, even if you\u2019re insecure or think your music is crap,\u201d Malkmus said.\u00a0\u201cYou go ahead and do it, and then the world sees you.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0pretty fun\u00a0part of doing any art, but specifically ours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pavement\u00a0returned to the road last night with a\u00a0hilariously\u00a0ramshackle cover of\u00a0Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u2018Stairway To Heaven\u2019 \u2013 watch footage below.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[30378,143,145,144,660],"class_list":["post-403710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-indie","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}