Qué Tienes?

Yo La Tengo has it at the Paradise Rock Club on Sunday, 18 June 2023.

The Pride of Hoboken makes its case for the Wall of Fame at the storied venue.

In the words of Faith No More, what is it?

What is it that Yo La Tengo has? It’s a certain special something that made the lineup of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew click in the early 90s. Since then the trio has been churning out indie rock standards and waiting for the world to catch on to how good they are.

The Pride of Hoboken has been at it so long, they were putting out records on Matador when it was just an indie label instead of a prestige indie label.

In fact, where else did that prestige come from if not from torchbearing bands like Yo La Tengo who showed everyone what independent music would, could, and should aspire to in the resurgent alternative space of the go-go 90s?

So what did the trio aspire to in their music? A deceptively subtle mix of pop rock tunes. A flair for noise and improvisation. A versatile, musical chairs mentality within the multi-cellular organism of the band. A balanced appreciation of the sonic miniature alongside a sense of the epic.

There were two Yo La Tengo sets on the evening, and no opener. Was the band a little self-conscious about the amount of music it was delivering for the ticket price? Ira Kaplan tossed off a quip during some between-song string tuning: “When you’re talking about the show and how long we played, this counts.” No complaints on a night of good vibes. The crowd was getting exactly what it had come for.

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You could hear the subtle intrigues of Yo La Tengo’s songcraft in the mostly quiet, mostly slowcore first set. Kaplan’s guitar waggled and skronked through some sharp passages, while McNew and Hubley held down the rhythm section, and they all traded the vocal duties round robin.

The epic closer built up from small beginnings, adding sticks, and stones, and gravelly sand until the instrumental felt like a towering structure, a teetering monolith, a power diesel screaming across the landscape. Vocals didn’t weave their way into the last piece until we were all about 15-minutes deep, anointing the assemblage of sound as a full-fledged song, arrived at only in the final moments, like a setting sun that bursts through the clouds just minutes before it sinks out of view behind a hilltop.

A night out with Yo La Tengo is a beautiful vintage carousel, cranking out classics and new songs from 2023’s This Stupid World, and everyone gets a ride. Even musician friends and local luminaries like members of Mission of Burma, Oneida, and more, who stepped out on stage to help close out the encore mini-set, which included a Monkees cover.

Sunday night was the first half of a two-night residency at the Paradise Rock Club. Good enough for a two-night residency, good enough for the wall of fame emblazoned along the wall of the entrance corridor, right? The people demand that Yo La Tengo join the hallowed ranks of artists who have made their mark at the storied venue. Joan Jett. Ed Sheeran.

Yo.

La.

Tengo.