Fiddlehead bring out Lou Barlow in Maine, then play a pop-up inside a subway station

Fiddlehead packed two very different performances into a single weekend, starting with a spot on the bill of the massive Turnstile show at Thompson's Point in Portland, Maine, on Saturday. Also on that lineup: Dinosaur Jr., New England alt-rock veterans from an entirely different generation.

Before playing a single note of their own material, Pat Flynn and company handed the stage over to a guest. Dinosaur Jr. bassist Lou Barlow stepped up for a solo acoustic rendition of "True Hardcore," a 1989 Sebadoh song. The track is a lo-fi, semi-sarcastic meditation on hardcore culture, the world Barlow and the members of Fiddlehead both came up in. Barlow typically introduces it by calling the song a ripoff of everything he's ever written.

The pairing wasn't accidental. Fiddlehead put a song titled "True Hardcore (II)" on their 2023 album "Death Is Nothing To Us," with a guest turn from Justice Tripp of Angel Du$t and Trapped Under Ice. In Portland, the band followed Barlow's appearance by tearing into "The Deathlife," then closed the set with "True Hardcore (II)," completing the generational loop.

Sunday brought a completely different setting. Fiddlehead staged a pop-up show at Alewife Station in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. The spot carries meaning for the band: their recent EP "Baby I'll Change" was originally issued on a vinyl variant called "Alewife Red & White." Footage from the gig shows the group nearly swallowed by the crowd, surrounded on every side by people screaming the words back.

Because of the members' day jobs — Flynn teaches high school history — Fiddlehead don't tour heavily. When they do play, they tend to make it count.