Thursday night's sold-out Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield show was  a trip down memory lane. Mostly, though, a testament to the timeless power of great songwriting. 

Dando and Hatfield, for the uninitiated, were the king and queen of the 1990s alternative rock prom. They were friends—or more than friends, nobody is really sure—who sang and played on each other's records. They made a handful of really great records that still hold up today.

For someone like myself, who saw The Lemonheads' "It's A Shame About Ray" tour in 1992, (I kept the set list as a souvenir until just a few years ago), and had Juliana Hatfield's 1993 classic, "Become What You Are" stuck in my car cd player for at least a couple of years, Thursday night's show was a real treat.  

Armed with only microphones and acoustic guitars, the duo swapped songs back and forth. They played songs from the albums that made them famous, as well as more recent compositions and a few cover songs. Hatfield played a lean-and-mean lead guitar on Dando's janglier moments and their voices sounded made for each other, as they always have.

The show had the feeling of two old friends playing songs together in someone's living room, which is part of what made it so enjoyable.  

The other part was the undeniable catchiness and power of the duo's songs.

Dando, sporting a full beard, hunched over his guitar and cranked out some of his best tunes, including "Bit Part", "Down About It," "Paid To Smile," "Ride With Me" and "It's A Shame About Ray." That last song was one of the show's highlights, not only because it was one of the best songs of the 90s, but also because Dando and Hatfield played the main guitar hook in unison. It sounded amazing.

After the two finished performing "Ray," Hatfield commented that it was hard  to follow Dando's songs because they are so good. Dando is a largely underrated  and under-recognized master of major-chord pop songs.

"Your songs are good," Dando countered.

Then he suggested that they play "So Alone," a song of hers that puts a bluntly suicidal lyric atop an anthemic rock chorus to devastating effect.  The performance turned out to be one of the best and most powerful parts of the evening.  

Other Hatfield highlights included her songs, "Butterflies" and "Choose Drugs."

The duo also performed two covers: "Cells" by Teenage Fanclub and a gorgeous rendition of Gram Parson's "$1000 Dollar Wedding," which the duo recorded in 1999 for a Parsons tribute album.

Dando and Hatfield  closed the show with the 1992 Lemonheads' song  "My Drug Buddy." As they sang the lines: "We have to laugh to look at each other. We have to laugh 'cause we're not alone," it was apparent that this sentiment was probably as true today for the duo as it was when they recorded it.