Bob Mould; Ted Leo @ Webster Hall

Bob Mould; Ted Leo
@ Webster Hall
New York, NY - April 29, 2016

Backed by his usual dynamic duo of Narducy and Wurster, Bob Mould began his return to the New York stage with two whips of Sugar - "Good Idea" and "Changes" (later, "If I Can't Change Your Mind" made an appearance) setting the tone for hook-infused ramshackle outbursts of that Mould sound that has spanned three incarnations and is perhaps in its most steady state over the course of all these years, leading up to his new record Patch the Sky from which among the items came "Voices in My Head", his latest gem. Recent classics such as "The Descent", "Hey Mr. Grey", "I Don't Know You Anymore", and "The War" joined the new crop as well as "Something I Learned Today", "Divide and Conquer" and in the finale, "Makes No Sense at All". That last one was of course paired with "Love is All Around", the theme from the Mary Tyler Moore show. That Minneapolis connection is thematically more appropriate than you may realize - everything Bob Mould does with his music is something like that. Love all around. An aggressive, raging, thrashing kind of expression of love. But love all the same.

Ted Leo opened proceedings with just his electric guitar, playing new tunes for his project with Aimee Mann, the Both, and perhaps some new tunes ripe for some new Pharmacists recordings, we can only hope. His catalog was also on full display including "Colleen" and "The Ballad of a Sin Eater". Ted joined the headliners for the beginning their encore, taking the drumkit while Wurster took the mic and led the crowd in a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the best and most important album of all time, The Ramones' self-titled debut and the gang did it with "Beat on the Brat".