Slanted, Enchanted, and Under the Trees: Pavement Brings the Reunion to ZooTunes
There is a specific kind of Seattle summer evening — long light through the firs, a picnic blanket, a beer that costs too much and tastes fine anyway — that was practically designed for a band like Pavement. This Sunday, July 19, the reunited indie-rock institution headlines BECU ZooTunes at Woodland Park Zoo, and if you have any residual '90s in your bloodstream, clear the calendar.
Pavement, for the blessedly uninitiated, spent the 1990s being the most influential band that refused to act like one — Stephen Malkmus's shrugging melodies and the lopsided guitars of Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain rewired what "indie" was allowed to mean. They broke up in 1999, reunited for a victory lap in 2010, and have been touring again in recent years to crowds who now range from original obsessives to their kids. The band's catalog is a greatest-hits set masquerading as deep cuts; you will know more of these songs than you think.
The setting is the draw as much as the band. ZooTunes turns the zoo's North Meadow into a lawn amphitheater where the sound of an animal or two occasionally answers the encore. It is the least rock-and-roll and most delightful place in the city to see a rock band — bring a low chair, arrive early, and make peace with the fact that the person next to you brought a full charcuterie spread.
If you miss Sunday, the series barely pauses for breath: Maren Morris plays the same lawn Thursday, July 23, swinging ZooTunes from lo-fi guitar heroes to arena-country crossover in the span of four days. That range is the series' whole thesis — one meadow, wildly different crowds, all summer long.
A word to the wise on logistics: ZooTunes shows sell out, parking near the zoo is a competitive sport, and the gates open earlier than you'd guess. The reward for planning is a night on the grass with one of the defining bands of American independent music, playing songs that sounded like a beautiful accident in 1992 and somehow still do.
Pavement never wanted to be a monument. Thirty-odd years on, they get to be a picnic instead. Enchanted, indeed.
Sources: BECU ZooTunes 2026 (EverOut); ZooTunes 2026 lineup (Seattle Refined); Woodland Park Zoo