Ted Leo gets heckled more than any other musician I’ve seen. It’s all out of love, though; the fans can’t not talk to him while he’s on stage. He clearly doesn’t mind the song requests, nonsensical drunken blurts, and weird questions—he always responds with wit and confidence. He’ll often engage the audience member in a short conversation, if they’re willing to play along, but he’s the man with the mic so the crowd always cheers when he takes the last word.

At last night’s show at Neumo’s Leo admitted to being a liar (“Like Henry Rollins,” he said. “If he can get away with it than I sure as hell can too.”), he apologized for not playing some festival that some fan wish he would’ve played, and he described James Blunt’s first single “You’re Beautiful” as “the soundtrack to date rape.”

All the commentary didn’t come into play until after the band ran through a blistering opening of their energetic songs, new and old. One right after another—“The Sons of Cain,” “Me and Mia,” “Where Have All the Rudeboys Gone?” and “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”

The regular Pharmacists were in tow—James Canty on guitar and Chris Wilson on drums—and Leo announced their new bassist was Marty Violence of the Young Pioneers. He had a beard and apparently he was performing with only two practices to his name. He did fantastically well given the circumstances.

The band ran through more of the usual songs, including “Bottle of Buckie,” “Army Bound,” “Coleen,” “Counting Down the Hours,” and “Parallel or Together?” (Though I can’t remember if that last track was played before the encore or during.)

After disappearing for about 30 seconds, Leo came out solo and joyfully refused requests from the audience—no Springsteen covers this time around, and no matter how much the girls in front begged, he wasn’t going to play his version of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” (even though he did promise he would at Bumbershoot, but whatevs) . Instead he did obliged when a young woman asked him to play “I’m A Ghost” from Hearts of Oak.

For that, he turned off his amp for a second and stepped back from the mic to see if he could remember all the guitar parts. “I think we can give this one a shot,” he assured with a smile after a few quick strums. He hadn’t played the song for awhile, clearly, but the audience sang with him, helping if he forgot the words, and they cheered him on when he had to take a beat or two to remember the progressions. The band joined him again for “Timorous Me” (I will never not get goosebumps with the band comes into the explosive chorus one by one in the song).

The encore was topped of, as it has been at most of his Seattle shows this year, with the blistering anthemic cover of Chumbawumba’s “Rappaport’s Testament: I Never Gave Up,” that appears on the B-Side EP that came with the initial release of Living With the Living (you can also get it on iTunes, I thinks).

He dedicated the song to J Chruch’s Lance Hahn, who passed away earlier this week. “He was a fucking incredible musician and an amazing human being,” he said. “And he never gave up.”

If you survive me
Tell them this
If you survive me
Tell them this

I never gave up!
I never gave up!
I crawled in the mud but I never gave up!

It’s a fantastic cover, and the best way to end the show—the crowd pumped their fists in the air and sang along while Leo strained his vocals to shout the closing lines as loud as he could.

RIP Lance.