For every kind of music, there is a season. For me, spring is the perfect time of year to open up all the windows and blast ’90s alt-rock.
So there’s no better time to see a band like Soul Asylum, one of the genre’s underrated gems. They may have released their debut album more than 40 years ago, but they had their peak in the last decade of the 20th century, hitting No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993 with the melancholy “Runaway Train” and going triple platinum with the record “Grave Dancers Union.”
They will also release a new album, “MPLS Unplugged,” a recording of a 2023 concert in Minneapolis that celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band’s appearance on “MTV Unplugged.”
The Minneapolis-based band may look a little different right now than in their heyday — their only original member is lead singer Dave Pirner, and he’s only joined by two of the other current members for this acoustic tour — but the soul in Soul Asylum persists.
Adding even more soul to Monday night’s show at City Winery Pittsburgh in the Strip District was opener Corey Glover, best known as the lead singer of political rock outfit Living Colour. Glover wowwed in his brief set, lending the power of his voice to both originals and covers. His version of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” was extraordinary, and the audience enthusiastically sang along to his modernized cover of “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles.
Tying the night together, he dedicated his closing cover of Prince’s “The Cross” to the people of Minneapolis, as well as Soul Asylum, who originated in the recently embattled Midwestern city. “It takes somebody from the real Middle West to show the world what America really is,” he said before launching into the tune with gusto.
City Winery is an ideal venue for an acoustic set, and it was clear that the sold-out crowd was packed with dedicated Soul Asylum fans. The musicians received a warm welcome to the stage as they kicked off the show with “Somebody to Shove.”
The band’s discography definitely vacillates between songs that barely need a tweak to be played acoustically and songs that sound completely made over with such a spare arrangement. But all 19 of the set’s selections sounded natural.
There’s also little room for error in an acoustic show — as Pirner noted when he spoke to TribLive’s Mike Palm — and the tightness of the two guitars and bass woven together sounded practiced and complementary.
In the twangier “Crazy Mixed Up World,” Pirner showed off the elasticity of his voice; the whole band sounded just like we’d transported back to the ’90s again.
A lot of Soul Asylum’s songs are what I like to call “end credit songs,” the kind of music that would fit perfectly at the finale of a movie. That’s very true of their jangly tune “Bittersweetheart.”
Another plus of the intimate show format was Pirner’s ability to banter with the crowd. He took the chance to tell lots of jokes between songs.
“A bear walks into the bar and the bear says, ‘I’ll have a gin … and tonic.’ The bartender says, ‘What’s with the long pause?’ and the bear says, ‘I don’t know, I’ve had them my whole life.’”
You might need to say it out loud, but it got a big laugh.
They did play plenty of songs from the blockbuster album “Grave Dancers Union,” including “Without a Trace,” perfectly adapted “New World” and highlighted “Black Gold,” perhaps the hardest they rocked acoustically with a punchy third verse.
But they didn’t neglect their recent work. “High Road” from 2024’s “Slowly but Shirley” churns with drums in its recorded version, but felt folkier onstage, with guitarist Ryan Smith playing a tambourine with one foot. “Freak Accident,” from the same record, felt like a perfect song for a Friday night at a dive bar.
After being reminded that Pittsburgh’s baseball team is the Pirates, Pirner said, “That reminds me of something. A pirate walks into a bar …. “
Well, I can’t print the rest of that joke, but I bet a lot of you know how it goes.
Their 1995 hit “Misery” transferred effortlessly to the quieter format, and it sounded just as good as it did back in the day. Plenty of the audience sang along, especially when Pirner urged everyone to “try it!” on the final chorus.
They dipped way back to the 1980s, too, notably with “Closer to the Stars,” which had Pirner reaching for the higher notes and his bandmates trumming energetically.
“I’m really not feeling like you guys want to hear more jokes,” he joked afterwards.
Soul Asylum had the perfect one-two punch encore, starting with “Runaway Train” — filled with lushly intertwined guitars and plaintive vocals — and ending with “Get On Out.” The booster of a song ends on a hopeful note, and the band finished with a big rock ending.
Pirner loved to say “thank you kindly” for the audience’s hearty applause between songs. Pittsburgh is thanking him and the rest of Soul Asylum kindly for such a great show.