Though Soul Asylum’s recent tendency to play casinos and state fairs suggests the group has continued with their complacent ways, their actual performances speak otherwise. The Soul Asylum that showed up for Friday’s show at Potawatomi Bingo Casino’s Northern Lights Theater more closely resembled the clamorous, club-filling Minnesota rock band of the late ’80s than the pandering soft-rockers of the late ’90s.
For an ostensible nostalgia act, their set was refreshingly raw. The band fumbled with songs, entertained themselves covering Johnny Cash and joked, cussed and bickered with each other, while singer David Pirner (looking little changed from 1995, with grapefruit-sized holes in the knees of his jeans and blond locks hiding his face, a la Kurt Cobain) swigged his way through a beer or two too many. He was wildly moody, easygoing one song then righteously pissed off the next, but that anger lent his voice a convincing bite.
Soul Asylum’s current lineup may actually be its most interesting. After the 2005 death of bassist Karl Mueller, former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson joined the band, serving as a reminder of the group’s rock ’n’ roll roots. The choice to fill their rotating drummer slot was similarly inspired: Michael Bland, a sometimes-Prince drummer built like a sumo wrestler. Sporting a mohawk and a pair of heroically stitched, bright purple overalls, he looked like a real-life version of one of the Gorillaz cartoons, and he pummeled the drums with all the delicacy you’d expect from a man his size.
The group barreled through hits like “Misery,” “Somebody to Shove” and “Black Gold,” with “Runaway Train” receiving the least fanfare, not only from the band, which buried it halfway through their set, but also from the crowd of mostly enthusiasts, who were much more vocal during hard-rocking non-hits from 1988’s Hang Time.
If history remembers Soul Asylum for their misguided attempts to carry the weight of the world, the band has nobody to blame but themselves, but Friday night the band captured their old spark, making the case that they deserve a reappraisal.
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