The Lemonheads at Fine Line (December 6, 2025)

Heading to the Fine Line on Saturday night was not an enjoyable exercise with subzero weather chaffing my face, some downtown sidewalks inexplicably left unshoveled.  I mostly walked against traffic as a steady stream of Wolves fans made their way to the Target Center.  Luckily, there was no line to get into the venue.  

“Pretty cold out there,” said Erin Rae after she casually stepped on to the stage and strummed her guitar.  A singer-songwriter from Nashville, she may have the sweetest voice I heard all year. And I don’t mean saccharine.  I mean sweet like a welcoming gentleness that would sooth any listener who was still trying to defrost.  

“I had a great therapy session with ChatGPT,” she joked in between “Putting on Airs” and “Clean Slate.”  She then sang the title track to her latest album Lighten Up.  

I don’t know if she was nervous, but she seemed a little tentative between songs.  I think she thought she wasn’t the right opening act for The Lemonheads.  “I should pick it up,” she added, “but I don’t have many options.”

She was right, but it didn’t matter to the audience who hardly talked while she sang a new song in C-sharp “Eventually It’ll Fall In Line” and got the audience to participate in “On Her Side.”  And in an ironic moment she got lost in the middle of “Undone” and had to noodle her way through the bridge, which caused the audience to cheer her on.

In a change of tempo The Lemonheads took the stage to Flipper’s “Sex Bomb.” 

The Lemonheads are on the road supporting their 11th Album, Love Chant, an album Evan Dando recorded in his new home of São Paulo, Brazil, an album that revisits a musical career that will span forty years next year.  On the album he collaborated with fellow musicians like Juliana Hatfield, John Felice (The Real Kids), John Strohm and Tom Morgan (Smudge). Even Erin Rae mentioned in her set that she sang backup vocals on the album.    

We last caught The Lemonheads twice on Dec, 2022 in Kansas City and Minneapolis for their It’s a Shame About Ray – 30th Anniversary Tour.   John in Kansas City wrote:   “Dando’s voice has held up nicely and the crowd sang along with hits’ It’s a Shame About Ray” and “My Drug Buddy”, holding their phones up to video capture those nostalgic songs of their college days…”

Like his former bandmate, Juliana Hatfield, Dando has a lot of music in his cannon and there has been no night where he’s played the same setlist, which at times caused a little shagginess with him and his band.  There were also two giant sheets of paper on the floor next to him.  I thought he was just going to pick and choose from a setlist like he was eating a seven course dinner at a five-star restaurant.  But then after a few songs he reached down and handed both sheets to a super fan.  (I would find out that the sheets contained the lyrics to the first song “Deep End.”)   

Dando played songs from his latest album, but he also played the hits from his breakout album, acknowledging that was the reason his fans braved a cold winter night to spend the evening with him.  He also played a lot of covers, which is not unusual.  He seems to be a fan of other bands.  He didn’t talk much during the set, but he did take a moment to say how much he loved the Minneapolis music scene.  And what felt like a highlight, he did a solo acoustic set of The Replacements “Skyway” and “If Only You Were Lonely. ”  Then his own song “Being Around” with the great lyrics like:

If I was the front porch swing would you let me hang? If I was the dance floor would you shake your thing? If I was a rubber check would you let me bounce Up and down inside your bank account?

Part of me thought that maybe Dando didn’t need a band.  Maybe he could do a solo tour next time and just play what he felt like at that moment in that city on that stage and let the audience be his backup singers.