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Live Review: Veruca Salt churn out more ’90s alt-rock nostalgia @ Brighton Music Hall

Barry Thompson

During the last 15-some-odd years, I don’t think too many people were saying things like, “Veruca Salt is my all-time favorite band, and life will never be the same until Nina Gordon and Louise Post quit their fussin’ and feudin’, resume being besties, and do music together again.” Somebody did, of course. In fact, several people must have, because every band is somebody’s favorite band. But was the global population at large truly aching for the founding members of Veruca Salt to reunite after a decade-and-a-half estrangement? Probably not really, no.

But here’s the thing — have you ever heard anyone claim to dislike “Seether” or “Volcano Girls,” the two Veruca songs everyone who enjoyed access to 90z MTV likely recognizes? Is anyone arguing that 94’s American Thighs and 97’s Eight Arms to Hold You don’t hold up at least a little better than the bulk of mainstream rock from the most overrated era in music history? Let’s say you read that Scott Weiland was rejoining the other three Stone Temple Pilots, and they were playing a concert down the street from your house. That would make you really angry, wouldn’t it? It would make most people very upset. But nobody seemed troubled by Veruca’s 2013 declaration of a reboot.

Gordon and Post, along with rhythm sectioners Jim Shapiro and Steve Lack handedly max capped Brighton Music Hall on Saturday, so clearly, the good vibes surrounding their unbroken-uppedness have yet to subside. Pointing out a serendipitous twist of fate midway through the set, Post noted that this — the last show of this particular tour — happened to be occurring in the same city where the final performance of her and Gordon’s original run went down back in ‘98. Evidentially that ill-fated gig involved olives stored in a bra for some reason and “other crazy shit.”

That bit of banter appropriately segued into “The Museum of Broken Relationships,” the songwriting duo’s trenchant return to form, and the new theme song for every human nuisance who’s ever drunk texted an ex they haven’t spoken to in years. But apparently it’s worth the trouble to unburn a bridge every now and again. Any jaded souls who’ve been let down by one-too-many half-baked nostalgia reunions and showed up expecting a slog through Veruca’s greatest hits likely found themselves blindsided by happy surprise, because they expected very wrong. And to go unmoved by the sight of two old friends, one of whom allegedly used to write insulting lyrics about the other, hugging it out after orchestrating a thoroughly triumphant rager of a rock show would require a cold, not to mention guitar-music-hating heart.

Only two complaints: The crowd failed to raise a satisfactory number of fists or add sufficient supplementary “Whoa-OHs!” during the breakdown in “Spiderman ’79” — one of the most under-appreciated applications of “Whoa-“ing ever. Get it the fuck together, crowd at Brighton Music Hall. Also, the band neglected “Tonight and the Rest of My Life” from Gordon’s unfortunate stint as a Sarah McLachlan clone, although I’m probably in the minority for wanting to hear that one.

Openers Battleme delivered perfectly serviceable arena-friendly alt-rock with great enthusiasm and not much else, although I don’t know if it’s really their fault that they’re so boring. It’s probably kind of hard to not elicit a lot of “yawn, seen it, whatever” when your band is four scruffy looking dudes playing the exact style one typically expects four scruffy looking dudes to play.