The Good-Natured Pavement Shows Hints of Rich Power

Pavement’s music describes a life that alternately flows and lurches, sometimes tentatively feeling its way into a situation, sometimes soaring with pure exhilaration. Fronted by Stephen Malkmus’ warm drawl and driven by restless rock-guitar arrangements, the music captures a cascade of impressions and images with a natural charm and an uncommon emotional richness.

When it gets too rich, the band tends to retreat to the safety of irony and enigma and to performances like its show on Wednesday at Spaceland. Pavement has come to the forefront of the American indie-rock world on both its musical merits and its sometimes contrary attitude, and Wednesday’s informal set was a good-naturedly contentious one built on audience requests.

That meant rarities and obscurities shared time with tunes from the new album, “Brighten the Corners.” After one song concluded abruptly, bassist Mark Ibold innocently asked Malkmus, “What happened to the ending part?” And fans started shouting, “Just play!,” during one long deliberation among the musicians.

Good idea. As spontaneous and intimate as Wednesday’s ramble was, you can’t help but wonder what a harnessed Pavement could do. Malkmus and Scott Kannberg, Pavement’s other singer-guitarist, aren’t flashy figures, but they are two unmistakably strong personalities whose interaction carries the kind of tension that can generate creative sparks. Wednesday’s more focused songs packed a hint of the power at their command.

Pavement spends a lot of time in interviews complaining about being called a slacker band. The group has stopped acting like one in the studio, and it’s time to do the same on stage.