I’d not seen the Lemonheads since their heyday of the early 90s when, following the rapid release of Lick (1989), Lovey (1990), It’s a Shame About Ray (1992) and Come on Feel the Lemonheads (1993), their lead singer Evan Dando became the poster boy for the post-grunge slacker generation. After Car Button Cloth (1996), however, Dando’s struggles with addiction and mental health problems, as well as more recent controversies, have blighted subsequent work. The last thirty years have in reality provided erratic live performances and some substandard recordings. It was with some surprise that, against the odds, the recently released Love Chant album delivered glimpses of what Dando can do, aided by old friends J Mascis and Juliana Hatfield, among others.

As a result of this chequered history, I went to the beautiful venue of the Holmfirth Picturedome with mixed feelings about what exactly might transpire. Willy Mason provided excellent support, and in many respects he could have easily been the headline act. So polished is his exemplary country-tinged songwriting, capped off by the still powerful Oxygen.

The Lemonheads set was effectively split into sections with a full band rocking out on tracks like It’s About Time, Bit Part and Confetti before Dando switched to an acoustic for a section including My Drug Buddy and Outdoor Type, which had the crowd singing along. Dando signed off with a solo rendition of Frank Mills, a rather prophetic song about an erratic, loveable soul. This was a crowd-pleasing set all round based around the best of their back catalogue, a bit chaotic at times in keeping with Dando’s persona, but overall an enjoyable reminder that despite all the noise around Dando, at his best he is a great songwriter.



Ian's The Lemonheads gig was at Holmfirth Picturedome on 30 September 2026