Stephen Malkmus didn't bring it up, but Pavement, the quintessential American indie-rock band of the 1990s, played its final U.S. show at Bogart's Oct. 16, 1999.

        Mr. Malkmus, Pavement's singer, returned to the site of his former band's last stand Saturday. But this time, he returned as a solo artist with no intentions of revisiting his musical past.

        Too bad. The show, a 90-minute affair, was pleasant enough but wasn't as good as live Pavement at its loosest, which was most of the time. And certainly not as good as when the band was serious about rocking.

        As Pavement's chief songwriter, Mr. Malkmus seems entitled to play the old stuff, but that doesn't interest him. Instead, he and his backup band, the Jicks, gave the crowd all but three songs (“Black Book,” “The Hook” and “Deado”) from his solo debut plus a few B-sides, unrecorded songs and aborted covers.

        The new songs picked up where the last Pavement album left off — strong songwriting shifting between cryptic word play and plain-spoken narrative, placed in milder musical settings than Pavement's dissonant early stuff.

        The band, drummer John Moen, bassist Joanna Bolme, and keyboardist/guitarist Mike Clark, are musicians culled from Mr. Malkmus' current home of Portland, Ore. They recreated the recordings well and anchored the rhythm during several tasteful guitar runs by Mr. Malkmus.

        But completely absent was the tension and release of a Pavement show, when Mr. Malkmus would spend half the night yelling at drummer Steve West, or when he would playfully sabotage the song when it was Scott Kanneberg's turn to sing. Instead, there was Mr. Malkmus at the front, backed by three competent, dutiful players who even laughed on cue at each of their boss' between-song jokes.

        Granted, their boss is pretty funny. In the encore, he wished an audience member a happy birthday by doing the Special's “Rudi, A Message to You” with improvised birthday lyrics. From there came about 30 seconds of Creedence Clearwater Revival's “Lodi,” followed a merger of Radiohead's “High & Dry” and Sheryl Crow's “If It Makes You Happy.” It was a clever little moment, but it didn't rank with catching Pavement's last show.

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