Yo La Tengo Plays All-Covers Show In Barcelona

Yo La Tengo has amassed a vast catalog of original songs over the course of the band’s +35-year career. Equally deep is the band’s repertoire of cover songs, which was showcased during their concert on Tuesday in Barcelona, Spain.

While Yo La Tengo regularly incorporates covers into their live shows, they also have an annual tradition of performing on-the-spot covers live on air in exchange for pledges to freeform radio station WFMU. The band in 2006 released a compilation of covers performed during WFMU pledge-a-thons, Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics, and issued a second edition in 2016, Murder in the Second Degree.

Tuesday’s all-covers show at Sala Apolo was part of the Primavera Sound Festival’s adjacent event, Primavera a la Ciutat Barcelona 2024. Yo La Tengo will play the festival proper this Friday, May 31.

YLT’s setlist featured a few rarely played covers of songs by The Dream Syndicate, The Who, The Temptations, The Kinks and others. The band also played more regularly covered songs by the likes of The Velvet Underground, Sun Ra, Hank Williams, Daniel Johnston, Jackson Browne, Black Flack and The Troggs.

Guitarist Ira Kaplan explained the band was bestowed medals from the Primavera Sound Festival and the person who gave them the award wore a Urinals t-shirt, prompting a performance of the Urinals song “Surfin’ With the Shah.”

The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning,” which was sung by drummer Georgia Hubley, was introduced by Kaplan, who mentioned that the band played in Barcelona for the first time 35 years ago and dedicated the song to the local music magazine Ruta 66.

Kaplan’s other dedications included giving a nod to Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra, who recently turned 100 years old, before playing Sun Ra’s “Somebody’s In Love” and shouting out the late Steve Albini ahead of bassist James McNew helming Cheap Trick’s “He’s a Whore.”

Kaplan also recounted recently seeing Neil Young & Crazy Horse in concert before playing their song “Don’t Cry No Tears.” View the full Yo La Tengo covers show at Sala Apolo captured by Rawl G below: