Illustration by Florence Kate Upton from The Vege-Men's Revenge, 1897
I've seen most of my all-time favorite bands in concert, but when I discovered the Pixies in high school I was too late (and living in the wrong part of the world) to see them live before their breakup in 1993. So I was pretty excited when, a couple years ago, Frank Black and the gang overcame the interpersonal weirdness that had lingered through the years and put together a reuniontour. I was a little disappointed when it became evident that these were "We're only in it for the money" shows - the Pixies will probably not be recording new material, just playing the classic "hits" to earn some walking-around money. But still - IT'S THE PIXIES. I had to see them at least once, and their current run of shows (where they're playing the entirety of the Doolittle album) seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.
The opener for the show was Rain Machine, featuring Kip Malone of TV on the Radio, and they weren't bad, but their mission statement seemed to be, "Kip Malone has a girlfriend who plays keyboards, and she asked to have a side project that will bring them closer together as a couple." Their set made me a little worried, too, because the sound mix was kinda poor, with Malone's baritone vocals getting overwhelmed by the guitars on most of the songs they played. Fortunately, the mix for the Pixies was much better (almost perfect, in my opinion, although Kim Deal's vocals could have been higher in the mix) - after a few minutes of clips from Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou projected on the screen at the back of the stage, the band came out and immediately started playing.
The Pixies made the smart call of not immediately starting with the Doolittle songs - it's a short album, and it makes for either a very short set (or a very front-loaded set) if you play it first. Instead, the band warmed the crowd up with some of the b-sides to the Doolittle singles - "Manta Ray" and "Weird at My School" sounded pretty good, even if some of the crowd weren't familiar with them. They probably should've skipped "Bailey's Walk" because Frank Black can't really hit a couple of those notes anymore, but the waiting made it all the more exciting when the band kicked into Doolittle's opening song, "Debaser".
I don't really need to say much more than that the band played Doolittle the way it should be played live, fairly loyal to the album versions but with the extra kick of a live-show setting. The experience was also enhanced by the projected short films that went with each song the band played - I thought that this was very apt, because the songs on Doolittle each have their own character and feel. It reminded me of how, in the original CD's booklet, there was a Simon Larbalestier visual piece to represent each song. However, the timing of the films was so perfect that I had to wonder if the band is playing to a click-track to stay in sync with their visuals.
I'd heard that Frank Black was under the weather, but his vocals sounded great, and the band seemed to be having a good time. They ended the set with "Gouge Away", the last track on Doolittle, but came back for two encores. They played a few chestnuts ("Caribou" and "Vamos") and a couple more b-sides from the Doolittle era, the "UK Surf" version of "Wave of Mutilation" (cool for me because it was the first Pixies song I ever heard) and ending with the mighty Kim Deal song "Into the White". The performance was professional almost to the point of being workmanlike, but the magic in the songs themselves elevated the experience to another level. I don't begrudge the Pixies their belated success - on the contrary, I'm glad I got to see them during my lifetime, and I think that at this point in their lives they will use the obscene amounts of money they make off these shows to make some smart retirement plans.
"Into the White" by the Pixies
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