Pixie-Late
I went to the Pixies last night.
If you can’t tell from that opening line I am less than effusive about this. Not that i’m not a big fan of the band, not that I didn’t spend most of my college years with Doolittle turned to 11, not that I didn’t think Kim Deal was the coolest chick in the universe (for a time.) I saw Frank Black in concert just after he’d stopped being Black Francis. I even once managed to get into a ’secret gig’ in Tower records the last time he was in town promoting his solo album. So I know the noise and the power that the band are capable of.
Unfortunately last night though, the wind wasn’t with us. I have no idea how many were at the gig, 10, 20 thousand maybe? We were on the pitch, and considering we didn’t get there till about 2 minutes before they came onstage (yes we missed all the support acts) the place was surprisingly empty. I suppose the Pixies aren’t the type of band who you would think would fill a stadium, perhaps if they’d been in the Point it would have been better, although that place also has crap accoustics. Certainly when they arrived on stage they didn’t appear like one of the most influential rock bands of the 90’s. Kim Deal, in a pink jumper and white cotton trousers looked more like someone’s mother caught short on laundry day than a rock icon. Frank Black was no longer Black Francis, and instead had turned into a Christy Moore look-a-like. Only Joey Santiago looked like a proper rock star. Shaved head, tattoos, all dressed in black. As one of our group said ‘I bet Joey gets all the women’ my response ‘Well it’s probably not Frank anyway.’
But for all the changes that time has wrought, they still played the old tracks with a familiarity that belied their time apart. ‘Gouge Away’, ‘Monkley gone to heaven’, Here comes your man,’ and for some inexplicable reason ‘Wave of Mutilation’ twice. I’m sure it would have been great if we could have heard it. I’m sure the people living on the northside of Lansdowne heard a fabulous concert, but for us it was all blown away on a bitter wind.
60 quid to hear muffled guitar and strangled vocals. What a pity.
