Sugar @ Webster Hall, New York, NY 5/3/26
Bill: Sugar
Venue: Webster Hall, 125 E. 11 St., New York, NY
Date: Sunday 5/3/26
Ticket: $59 50 Face plus fees (got a friends ticket for $40)
8:30pm Sugar
Active: 1992 (Brooklyn, NY via Minneapolis, MN/Boston, MA/Athens, GA)
Affiliated: Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü), David Barbe (Mercyland), Malcolm Travis (Human Sexual Response)
Latest Release: "Long Live Love" (BMG Rights Management, 2026), 'House of Dead Memories" (BMG Rights Management, 2025)
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While Sugar didn't carry the deep nostalgic impact that Hüsker Dü or even Human Sexual Response has for me, I did have a residual desire to check in on their reformation on a slightly greater urge in comparison to seeing Bob solo. I guess that is because it guaranteed I was going to see a full band vs Bob alone with guitar, which I last went to at Iridium. No dig on that, I enjoy Bob Mould in any format, but I prefer him with a loud guitar roar behind him.
I was joking with my regular concert buddy, who couldn't join me tonight, that he saw Bob Mould with band about 5 years ago at Bowery Ballroom at a show I couldn't go to thinking in my head that I saw Mould a couple years after solo. He wryly noted that 5 years is really 8 or so in our timeline, since he last saw him pre-pandemic. For that matter so did I, as my last time was January 2020. Another friend that somehow never HEARD of Sugar, noted that it was strange how Bob couldn't pack the show he went to at Le Poisson Rouge with his band, but Sugar sold out 3 nights. Well, I couldn't say boo since I missed going with him to the LPR night for some reason or another myself but here I was at Webster Hall flying solo seeing Bob Mould in the flesh for the second time this decade. When Bob asked how many people were there the night before there were some hand raised and a tally of 32 was the joke of the night. Yet, as that joke happened, the adolescent in me felt a tinge of guilt that really I should be at each and every Bob Mould performance I am within local radius of ever since I missed my first chance to see Hüsker Dü in Worcester at Ralph's all ages early show because I had a ticket to see Jimmy Page for the first time in the Firm. Decisions, decisions!
My other recollection was that I had the fortune of interning at Rykodisc when Sugar was first signed and I had a place to stay on 103rd St on the Upper West Side through a friends former employer that loved him. What a hook up because then I got a straight shot on the train to Canal St. where Sugar played a loft party type event. This time it was a bit more casual since James of James Rocket fame could not use his ticket that he bought half a year ago for the middle night of this 3-night NYC run for Sugar at Webster Hall and sold it to me for $40. I had been eyeing these shows that I might make one of them from secondary market tickets that all seemed to be $75-100 and I was going to let my schedule dictate whether I went or not. Saturday and Monday were not options, but that Sunday seemed open so when James made that generous offer it sealed the deal.
Little did I know I would be helping move some equipment to Tee Pee storage and office up and down 4 flights of narrow spiral stairs before heading sweaty to a sea of bears that would pack the room out making movement or beer getting impossible after the one I got on the way in, but at least I didn't have that post moving thirst I had upon arrival throughout the whole show. There was just an annoying person jumping up and down in a sea of placid greys directly in front of me most of the show that I couldn't escape after the sold out crowd consolidated. I noticed in the Brooklyn Vegan write up from the first night on Saturday that there was a reference of "moshing in the pit" that made me chuckle. This show was far from that but brought up the memory of finally seeing Husker's the first time at UMASS on the delayed Warehouse tour, where a female crowd surfer lost her shoe and Bob noted she would have a long walk home. The pit I saw later that year at the Living Room in Providence after Pink Floyd right before they broke up was the last time I saw that kind of ruckus in front of a Bob Mould stage.
At the show I didn't realize Sugar released a couple newly recorded digital singles to go with their two albums and an EP from the 90's before Bob went solo yet again and seemingly for good. We are told from the stage there was a big by chance San Francisco meetup that presaged a sly ask between Bob and Dave after personal catch-up. "Sugar 2026. You in? People are asking." I guess there wasn't an Drive By Truckers production on the docket cuz Barbe was in like Flynn.
So anyway, I'm glad I checked in and got my Bob Mould fix. Dylan has an album called Together Through Life that I feel certain artists fit in terms of my seeing and hearing them through the years. New Day Rising was my intro in early '85 when I was still 14 and too paper route cheap to get Zen Arcade until it was in a used bin a few weeks later. Rolling Stone said that was the modern Quadrophoenia so that is what made me want to hear that band but I opted for the brand new record that came out like what 3 months later? The show kicks off playing a recording of the Beatles "She Said She Said" so classic rock is more of a lineage than "Hardcore" even if the the classic rock people called the band "HUSK-er Doo Doo" back in the SST years. Sugar charted on Billboard in their heyday like a mid-tier classic rock band after the 90's alt-rock realignment.
Anyway by Sugar time, Bob was an established figurehead to me and remained that way whether in Sugar or doing something else. As far as Sugar goes I had my favorite (Beaster, duh), the one I knew best (Copper Blue) and the one I accidentally bought two 75 cent copies of online a couple years after release that I played on the radio when it came out (File Under Easy Listening). In some ways I might have been just as satisfied seeing Bob Mould on an electric tour on a new record, but I wasn't so burned out on the Sugar catalog that I couldn't enjoy a show with some era hits like "Hoover Dam," "A Good Idea" or the grand finale "If I Can't Change Your Mind."
It should be said that my two favorite Sugar songs were not played: "Judas Cradle" and " What You Want It To Be." So much for nostalgia, I guess it is often too heavy.
FOR FURTHER REVIEW:
File Under: Easy Listening (1994)
Hüsker Dü-Could You Be The One? (1987)
Various Artists-No Alternative (1993)
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