“We miss you!” somebody yelled before Luna even started its show Thursday at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. “We were just here,” replied the unsentimental bandleader Dean Wareham.
He meant that they played DC at the 9:30 Club last summer, a booking so unexpected that many of their fans might have missed it altogether. After all, the band that thrived on the college underground in the ’90s departed with some fanfare in 2005 with a Bowery Ballroom gig that concluded Wareham’s revealing memoir, Black Postcards in 2008, and was filmed for posterity in a documentary that year which was, after all, titled Tell Me Do You Miss Me.
Despite touring and recording as Dean & Britta, the duo he continued after Luna with his wife and band bassist Britta Phillips, suddenly Luna itself returned last year after a decade’s absence with a tour in Spain and a few US dates. Without playing anything new, the future of the band is unknown, but they happened to be doing a few East Coast shows before playing Europe for a week. A few dates are scheduled for San Francisco in January, but that seems to be about it.
“We haven’t played since July,” Wareham, 53, said at one point. And maybe they don’t have to. But they certainly sounded good in their 15-song set that was heavy on a couple of albums that are more than 20 years old by now, Bewitched and Penthouse.
The music holds up very well with the laconic vocals from Wareham, in his glasses and mess of hair looking like a frenzied associate philosophy professor. He often stands as he delivers his oddly poetic and often amusing lyrics before delving into intricate guitar interplay with Sean Eden, a highlight of the band, as the rhythm section remains solid with Phillips inventive and melodic on the bass and Lee Wall drumming strongly and contentedly in the back, his frequent smile indicating that he among the band at least is happy to be back playing these songs.
Luna’s connection to the Velvet Underground goes well beyond the New York roots, guitar poetics, and a lovely Nordic presence in Phillips, who is somehow 53. Luna was chosen to open for the Velvets on their 1993 reunion tour; Sterling Morrison played on two tracks on Bewitched. They continue the traditions of that sound on dreamy songs, from the opening “Chinatown” to “Tiger Lily” and the big guitar rave up that ended the main set, “23 Minutes in Brussels.”
Wareham said he was including something from a 2002 album, the fizzy “Lovedust,” because somebody said they never did anything from Romantica. And there was just one song from their 2004 swan song, Rendezvous, with “Malibu Love Nest.” Clearly the band is in a groove with its earliest music and it sounds great.
And yet there is some new music from the band, and it’s coming from Phillips, who released her solo debut, Luck or Magic, in April. She was listed as the show opener, but she was joined by the other musicians in Luna, so it might as well been better integrated into the set. Phillips has sang lead on a few Luna cuts in the past, but presents a more synth-backed collection on the album, which, like Nico’s albums did, balances originals with well-chosen covers.
The covers dominated her set, with a lovely reading of Dennis Wilson’s B-Side, “Fallin’ in Love,” the Cars’ unique anti-partying song “Drive,“ and that catchy solo hit from ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog, “Wrap Your Arms Around Me.” In each, she had to fiddle with the backing synth track and seemed unsure about levels of her bass or voice. Wareham, perhaps to take the spotlight from himself, sat as he accompanied on guitar.
Maybe Phillips should be featured more in the regular Luna set, since she is (and I just found this out) the person who provided the singing voice of Jem in the 1980s animated series Jem (all 180 songs!) when she was just 19 and 20. (She was also in the band at the heart of the 1988 film “Satisfaction,” if you care to look that up).
Once the headliner started their set (after elaborately leaving the stage for a long break before returning as themselves), Phillips seemed content to concentrate on bass and backing vocals for as long as this unexplained revived Luna continues, or whenever they come to town again.
And when will that be?
The answer may have come in the last song in the encore, which began with a cover of the Cure’s “Fire in Cairo” and closed with their cover of Beat Happening’s “Indian Summer:” “We’ll come back for Indian summer / and go our separate ways.”
SETLIST
Chinatown
California (All the Way)
Pup Tent
Lovedust
Malibu Love Nest
Sideshow by the Seashore
Rhythm King
Bewitched
Tracy I Love You
Tiger Lily
Friendly Advice
Lost in Space
23 Minutes in Brussels
ENCORE
Fire in Cairo
Indian Summer
BRITTA SETLIST
One Fine Summer Morning
Daydream
Fallin’ in Love
Wrap Your Arms Around Me
Ingrid Superstar
Drive
