Woohoo!

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I finally got to check the Pixies off my list of bands to see. And, through the magic of the internet, I ended up with front row seats (not counting the three rows in the little "pit" area in front of the front row, ahem) !

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They played all of Doolittle, in order, which was pretty great. That's not my absolute favorite Pixies record (Surfer Rosa), but it's certainly a solid one, and it was even better live. In addition, they played a half-dozen B-Sides from the Doolittle era (all of which, I believe, can be found on their Complete B Sides compilation): Manta Ray, Weird At My School, Into The White, the slow acoustic version Wave Of Mutilation, etc.. And to finish off, they played a few early songs, including Gigantic - which meant Kim got to sing two songs (Gigantic, Into The White)!

Plus, the giant LED screen thing they had in back, showing groovy Dali-esque clips, funky 8-bit space-warp stuff, etc. the whole time, was really sweet.

So, complete success IMO.

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Frank Black / Charles Thompson / Blackie Francis / Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV or whatever he goes by these days, sounded exactly as he did on those records - his voice hasn't changed a bit in 20+ years. He didn't back down from any of it and every scream, rasp, growl, note was exactly as how it was recorded. Very impressive.

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For the most part, they did the songs completely straight - no rearrangements, no tempo changes. So, except for a bit in Gigantic, where they "brought it down" so Kim could say goodbye to everyone, the only moment of spontaneity was during Vamos, when Joe Santiago attacked his guitar with a white face towel, and his shoe, and one hell of an angry overdrive pedal.

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Nonetheless, t'was a great show. Very glad I finally got to see them. Now, if the Talking Heads would just reunite...

Surfer Blood opened, and they were pretty good. Kind of an updated Pixies feel. They did something I don't think I've seen an opening band ever do: they arranged their set list to put their better songs towards the end, so that more people would hear them. Or maybe it wasn't intentional. Either way...