This seems to be becoming a habit, and
happily a quite welcome one… for the third year in a row, I get to take my son
Logan to see veteran US alt-rock innovators The Pixies! This time it’s a first for
me since 2016 (gig 1,012) at their spiritual London home of Brixton Academy, the
band promoting another post-reunion album in 2024’s “The Night The Zombies Came”.
Another set of jagged and seething garagey grunge and acerbic backwoods
psycho-hillbilly riffery and imagery, it’s another pretty decent addition to
their post-reformation body of work, whilst still not matching the startling
and groundbreaking quality of their 1980’s canon. I guess main man Black
Francis just can’t stop churning them out, so carry on mate!
Second night oop the Smoke this week too, and good thing too, having noted on Wednesday that the Piccadilly line was closed today, so our usual Osterley parking plans were out! Instead, we set off just after 3 and drove all the way through London (skirting the Thames, Clapham Common and the Chelsea Flower Show site!) to our intended pre-paid parking spot. However, on arrival, said spot was chaotic and wholly shonky, a rammed and tiny backstreet car wash with no discernible parking spaces in sight, and cars backing in and out with careless impunity. I quickly gave that up as a bad job and drove off, luckily finding a street spot practically across the road from the venue. Result! Had to circumnavigate this cavernous old theatre venue to join the priority queue but we grabbed a barrier spot, house left, on entry. Result two! Chatted with fellow barrier-grabbers, including a gent whom I’d seen at recent Skids and Wedding Present gigs (!), before 2-piece support Big Special kicked off at 8. “This is our new national anthem, it’s called “Shithouse”,” announced the drummer of this 2-piece early doors, which nailed their colours to the mast somewhat! With their relentless thudding taped hardcore backing track and bilious barked polemic lyrics, they struck me as a white Brummie Bob Vylan; no bad thing on the whole, but a bit harder on the ears than Bobby and Bobbie… An early, slower “Coming Around” gave brief respite in its’ gothic Nick Cave-isms, and they finished on their best number “Dig”, a synth pulse backing track overlaid by the frustrations of inner city life, but apart from that I admired their conviction and politics more than their sound…
The Pixies themselves sauntered on at 9 to an eerie backing track, opening with a galloping triad of newies, “You’re So Impatient” with its groovy descending choral hook being the best of this early trio, before a breathless “Planet Of Sound” seemed set to fire the gig into life. Being the contrarian he is, however, Black Francis then switched both guitars (to a time-worn strumalong acoustic) and gears into a sleazier, slower-burn and more Violent Femmes-like backwoods murder ballad vibe, nonetheless pleasing the masses with a jaunty “Here Comes Your Man”, then astonishing this old fan with a low-key but still brilliant reading of “Ed Is Dead”, possibly my favourite Pixies song. Full of surprises tonight, then, the old bugger…!
More akin to my last time here in
2016, then, this was a return to the usual Pixies trope of whatever
the utterly non-communicative Francis is in the mood to play, in whatever order
he feels like! So this slower burn early section took us up to another guitar
swap for Francis, back to the electric for the sinister build and roaring climax
of “Gouge Away”. Logan noticed a nascent mosh to our right, so off he went, and
his timing couldn’t have been better, with the strident chimes of a thunderous
“Debaser” next up… The place predictably utterly erupted for this, easily tonight’s
set highlight, which also heralded a stupendous mid-set moshpit catnip run, including
the 4-alarm blare and breathy interlude of a careering “Tame”, the brooding
anthemic “Monkey Gone To Heaven”, and an eerie yet excellently off-kilter
“Velouria”, guitarist Joey Santiago coaxing squalling noise for its’ intro from
his massive bank of pedals.
On went the acoustic again (hey, it’s a marathon, not a sprint!) for a swayalong “Hey”, tall and willowy new bassist Emma Richardson thereafter taking vocals for the more plaintive “In Heaven” and chuntering set closer “Into The White”, by which time I was in the mosh myself, seeking out my offspring. “White” rounded off a mammoth 33-song 2 hours (!) set, Francis then leading the band in a well-deserved bow before we gathered breath, thoughts and dropped keys (!) and hit the road, a slow egress through London onto a clear M4 getting us home about 1.15. So, in stages frustrating, contrary, unpredictable, quixotic, incendiary and quite quite brilliant, this was as ever a typical Pixies gig... But let’s face it; if they want to keep coming back as regularly as recently and delivering these types of performances, I guess so will we…!
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