Pavement Played Their First Concert In 12 Years And Removed Their Famous Smashing Pumpkins And Stone Temple Pilots Disses

Perhaps the most famous Pavement lyric comes from the band’s 1994 favorite “Range Life,” when Stephen Malkmus sings at the end of the song, “Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins / Nature kids, I, they don’t have no function / I don’t understand what they mean and I could really give a f*ck / The Stone Temple Pilots, they’re elegant bachelors / They’re foxy to me, are they foxy to you? / I will agree they deserve absolutely nothing, nothing more than me.”

Last night, Pavement returned for their first concert in 12 years and they’ve decided to leave the beef behind: Uproxx’s own Philip Cosores was at last night’s (May 23) show at The Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles and he reported Malkmus changed the song’s lyrics to no longer mention Smashing Pumpkins or Stone Temple Pilots. They opted to note different bands instead: While the first one is hard to make out, the second is Toad The Wet Sprocket.

If you ask Malkmus, the original lyrics weren’t a Smashing Pumpkins diss at all, or at least not an all-encompassing one: In a 1999 interview, Malkmus said of the supposed Pumpkins beef: “I only laughed about the band name, because it does sound kinda silly. […] And well, their status, that they were the indie darlings, the heroes of the indie scene. I never really dissed their music. I like their songs — well, most of their songs anyway. Especially ‘1979,’ that’s a cool song. As I said, I never dissed their music. I just dissed their status. I never really cared for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle or being ‘indie.’”