The Lemonheads at White Eagle Hall 12/16/2022
Evan Dando and The Lemonheads celebrated the 30th anniversary of their signature album, “ It’s A Shame About Ray” last night at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City.
They played a strong, two-hour set that featured not only all the great songs from that album (such as Confetti, Bit Part, Allison’s Starting To Happen, Mrs. Robinson, and the title cut), but also included a slew of other songs from their back catalog, most of which are also 1990’s vintage. They also covered a number of other artists, including The Ramones classic, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”, which might have been their best cut of the night. Here’s a couple short videos from the night’s performance. For me, it was a great trip down memory lane, and a reminder of why I played that album so many times when it came out. The songs are still great.
Evan Dando was back in good form, although looking a bit more ragged last night than in his pretty boy days. He clearly still has a tremendous fan club, especially amongst those of the female persuasion. I still don’t get it, but hey, I’m not one of the girls. They all still love him.
His guitar work was pretty solid, and he traded his axe for the bass guitar for “Rick James Style”, and an acoustic guitar for a couple others. He also hopped on the drum kit for “Mrs. Robinson” and a couple other songs at the end of the night. Spoiler alert: he should stick to the guitars!
Juliana Hatfield was on hand, both as an active contributor with the band for a few numbers (she was part of the Dream Team that recorded “It’s A Shame About Ray”), and also preceded the band with her own solo set. She’s older now than she was in 1992 (aren’t we all?), but she still belts out some solid guitar work and vocals. My fave was “My Sister”, which she plays with an awful lot of passion. She strikes me as timeless as Neil Young. And maybe as batshit crazy.
The night opened with a four-piece band, On Being An Angel. They played a short set that was light, garage-style rock, and did a good job of getting the early-birds ready for the show. Here’s a snippet of their live sound.