Pavement Return To The Road With A Very Unserious “Stairway” Cover

Oakland, CA's Mosswood Meltdown has expanded to a three-day event for 2026, and last night it kicked off with a Pre-Party featuring Christina's Trip, Memo PST, Vivian Girls, Wednesday, and headliners Pavement. It was the '90s indie icons' first show since November, so we're now in the fifth calendar year of their second reunion era.

Onstage in Mosswood Park, Pavement dropped an unexpected cover midway through the set, following the algo-revived, Gen Z-beloved "Harness Your Hopes." They attempted the fifth and sixth verses of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven," with Stephen Malkmus singing all incorrect lyrics. Well, almost all: It sounds like he got in a "piper" and a "wind," but he also sang "I like mangos" and "I wish I had rehearsed these lyrics a little better."

Previously, with the Jicks in Columbia, MO back in 2012, Malkmus partially covered "The Ocean" from Houses Of The Holy. And on the cusp of COVID lockdown in 2020, he controversially ranked the tracks on Led Zeppelin IV (aka ZoSo), placing "Stairway" at #3. (California issued the country's first stay-at-home order the next day. Coincidence?)

Here's how Moswood host John Waters (not to be confused with Zeppelin bootlegger John Waters) introduced Pavement last night:

These soft-liner, lo-fi, slacker-scuzz headliners cause more mayhem in ticket sales than any other band we've ever announced in 10 years. My phone has been ringing off the hook like the day Kurt Cobain died and my scheduled MTV profile got canceled due to his television tributes.

I'm from Baltimore and they're from Stockton. So we share a history of living in cities that are often battling each other for the most miserable or violent. But be glad, think who's lived in Stockton: Chris Isaak, Janet Leigh in Psycho, and yeah, Squeaky Fromme. I tell the politicians in Baltimore, be proud of our notoriety. Put a new bumper sticker out that says "The Wire: It's Even Worse Now." This band has been called the cock and balls of indie rock. And they practically invented the term alternative.

They toured with Sonic Youth, played Lollapalooza, and even starred in a very cool meta mockumentary film about their tour. Yes, they're smart, they're witty, and they took the suburb out of suburbia and made it sublime. The 1990s: I was already old then, but you weren't. But now you are. "Cut Your Hair." Crooked Rain. Oh, youth. But guess what? You'll never get it back. But here's the next best thing.

Pavement!

Watch fan videos from Mosswood below.