Everclear Hadn’t Played Seattle in 30 Years, So They Let the City Pick the Songs

Everclear’s Art Alexakis did the math two songs in. “We probably haven’t played here since 1995,” he told The Showbox, “and before that, 1993 for like 20 people.” For a band that formed 170 miles south in Portland, three decades between Seattle shows is
a long time to be gone. On Thursday, Everclear made up for it by letting the city pick the setlist.

The gimmick is the tour. Before each show, fans vote online for seven songs from a list of 21, and the winners get stitched into the set, so no two nights are the same. Each fan pick arrives with its own short film, a rotating cast of 1950s Vegas characters
announcing the song. Seattle’s first pick came courtesy of a Vegas lounge act, complete with a disclaimer that it was not made with AI. The lights came up, every phone went up, and the band tore into “You Make Me Feel Like a Whore” off their 1995 album Sparkle and Fade.

The rest of the picks included “Pale Green Stars,” “Learning How to Smile,” “One Hit Wonder,” “When It All Goes Wrong,” a Tom Petty “American Girl,” and a Van Morrison “Brown Eyed Girl.” Between them came the hits including “Father of Mine,” “Everything to Everyone,” and a set-closing “I Will Buy You a New Life.” The encore ended where it had to: “Santa Monica.”

Alexakis gave a shout-out to KNDD, the Seattle station he credited as the first major outlet to spin Everclear and kick-start the band’s 30-year career. The band also dropped news of a new record in the works, and a tour with Eve 6 next year.

It was a bill built for the millennials who packed the room. American Hi-Fi, whose songs were unavoidable in any early-2000s comedy from American Pie to Van Wilder, opened with a tight 40 minutes that peaked, predictably and correctly, on “Flavor of the Weak.”

Then Everclear handed a city they hadn’t seen in 30 years the exact setlist it asked for.