1,385 THE PIXIES, Big Special, London O2 Brixton Academy, Saturday 17th May 2025

 

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…!

1,318 THE PIXIES, The Pale White, London O2 Kentish Town Forum, Saturday 16th March 2024

 

Barely 2 months after delivering one of their most stellar performances at Cardiff Arena last March (gig1,270), veteran Boston sleazoid alt-rock pioneers The Pixies announced another slew of UK dates… and this time, unusually, they told everyone what they were going to play! Three sets of 3-night stands across the UK, including a first London date on a Saturday, promising full run-throughs of their lesser-known but still seminal original 4^th and 5^th albums (presuming you’re counting “Come On Pilgrim” as album 1, which I am), “Bossanova” and “Trompe Le Monde”. Excellent! I immediately booked tix for nascent Pixies devotee Logan and myself for said Saturday, anticipating a boys’ day out oop the Smoke. However, my knee op not only put a potential spanner in those works, but also gave me a goal – to be fit to drive to this one, just 7 weeks after the op! Thankfully my recovery was swift, and I got the go-ahead from the physio on Wednesday to get back to normal activities. So, an afternoon oop the Smoke, at least…

 We left at 12.30, suffering M4 closures which shipped us up at our booked parking spot just round the corner from the venue at 3.30, then found Kentish Town tube was shut till Summer, necessitating a walk down to Camden! Shopping and street vendor tea at Camden Lock later, we hit the O2 Priority queue 45 minutes before doors, grabbing a barrier spot house left on entry; the knee had held up well from the drive and unexpected hike to Camden, but I didn’t want to take any chances! Chatted to fellow front row punters – including a similar veteran set-list grabber who’d read my blog! – before openers The Pale White, dead on 8. “Panic Attack” their second number in, was a muscular and hard-edged rocker, and an eerie mid-set “Nostradamus” featured some Interpol-esque guitar riffs, but otherwise there was little to commend their average at best, and plodding at worst, post-grungy set. Well, apart from the drummer’s antics, that is…

 The place filled to capacity during the interval; no surprise really as this date was sold out in a day or so, and represented probably the smallest venue I’ve ever seen The Pixies, certainly the smallest since their 2003 reunion… Roadies laid down multi-page set-lists (surprise, surprise!) and I hazarded an interval loo trip, squeezing through the crammed masses back to our barrier spot just as Black Francis led the troops (including brand-new and very tall bassist Emma Richardson) onstage to a suitably eerie backing track. And, surprise, surprise again, he spoke to us! Giving us a heads-up on tonight’s performance and the genesis behind tonight’s opening song (“the story began in 1893…!”), Francis then led us headlong into the spaghetti Western surf-punk instrumental “Cecilia Ann”, kicking off the “Bossanova” run-through. Unfortunately, the guitars sounded a little off initially, somewhat discordant and fighting against the mix, with Joey Santiago stamping furiously on various pedals from his copious floor bank in front of us to rectify matters. However, by the tremendous, rampant “Allison”, things sounded completely sorted, and thereafter Pixies were flying.

Both “Bossanova” and “Trompe Le Monde” are very varied and almost scattergun stylistically and tonally, the former the smoother, more melodic, almost hazily dreampop, and the latter more abrasive, harsher and grungier. One would therefore expect the set, particularly the lesser played tracks, to feel a little uneven at times. However, after the guitar mix-affected first section, there were very few lowlights and actually a tumbling cascade of highs; “Hang Wire” was an excellent sinister goth march (preceded by Francis announcing, rather macabrely, “I lost a tooth or two during the pandemic and saved them so I could put them in my guitar!”), “Stormy Weather” was a fantastic anthemic change-of-pace soaring singalong and the best of the “Bossanova” tracks for me, and after a slightly restrained “Planet Of Sound”, “Alec Eiffel” was a frenzied slasher movie of a track, really kicking the “TLM” rendition into gear. However, the subsequent “Head On” eclipsed even that; Francis gave props to the Reid brothers before launching into a quite brilliant galloping rendition of their Jesus And Mary Chain surf-punk classic, easily my highlight of the night. Surf punk perfection!

 The languid verse and fierce college roar of “UMass”, the gabbled, stream-of-consciousness vocals of “Subbacultcha” and the old school Pixies death march of “Motorway To Roswell” (Francis admitting, “thank you for the appropriation [on this song], we don’t have motorways!”) were other “TLM” highlights, before the albums run-through concluded and time allowed for an eerie “Slow Wave Of Mutilation”, an equally slowed down “Nimrod’s Son” (still featuring the audience baying back the call and response “Son of a mother-fucker!!!” hook), and a double false start to eventual closer, the poppy light touch of “Here Comes Your Man”, before the band as usual took in a lengthy and thoroughly deserved ovation. No lists (I tried; the head roadie said, “we’re saving the planet by reusing them!” which for the first night of 3 at the same venue seemed fair enough…), so Logan (who’d been in the mosh since 3^rd number “Velouria”) and I headed off promptly, a much easier drive home seeing us back in the ‘don before 1. I have to confess it did feel a little weird knowing what The Pixies were going to play next, but great to hear them go off the beaten track and spotlight their lesser-known works. And “Head On” was worth the admission price alone. So once again, all hail The Pixies!

1,270 THE PIXIES, Slow Readers Club, Cardiff International Arena, Saturday 18th March 2023

(Calm down, it's the support's list!)

“You can’t go too far wrong with the Pixies!” Those were my words to Logan, as my son was mulling over the purchase of a green army shirt from a Camden street vendor, during a quick shopping trip immediately prior to the “Rick Astley/ Blossoms do The Smiths” gig in October 2021 (gig 1,191). Yes to the shirt, but which back design? Ultimately, heeding my fatherly advice, Logan went for the “Monkey Gone To Heaven” design (over SLF and Dead Kennedys, as I recall…), and when I then played him that track on my phone, he immediately knew his decision was the right one. Since then, Logan’s been jonesin’ to see The Pixies “live”, so when Boston’s veteran and cutting-edge acerbic late 80’s alt-indie noiseniks and grunge pioneers announced UK arena shows, ostensibly promoting 2022 album “Doggerel”, we were in like a shot. Not their best work, this one, but given Black Francis’ penchant for leading the band, setlist-less, through whatever the hell he fancies playing from their now-extensive and stellar canon at any given time, who cares?

 Making an afternoon of it, we hit the road at 2ish for a very swift hurtle along the M4. Shopped until Cardiff started closing around us (at an early-feeling 5!) so we grabbed cola and cake in Bru, next to the Arena, joining the queue just after 6 and chatting with a father/ son combo who’d driven from Stoke for this one. Stoke! Fair play fellas! Despite the hordes in front of us, we still grabbed a barrier spot, house right, under the large bank of ceiling-hung speakers. This is gonna get loud…! Greeted Shannon, Rachel’s cousin’s daughter, who was a few along from us on the barrier (!) before the support joined us at 7.30. Happily, this was Slow Readers Club, fine hosts of gig 1,268, again kicking off with the robotic synth and fist-pumping hook of “Modernise”. “It’s an honour to be supporting Pixies tonight!” proclaimed vocalist Aaron Starkie before the taut, clipped “All I Hear”, but, time pressure notwithstanding, the Readers were men on a mission tonight, to win over as many of the Pixies massive as possible with another splendid performance. “We’re going to play [another] new one… but I guess they’re all new to you,” deadpanned Starkie before a marvellously morose and melancholy “Lay Your Troubles On Me” built to a crescendo; “I Saw A Ghost” saw a receptive crowd handclap along; and by the stentorian march of the penultimate “Forever In Your Debt” there were more than a few new Readers converts in evidence. An urgent “Lunatic” ended a splendid 7 song vignette of a set in which Slow Readers Club firmly established their own future arena credentials, a nice footnote being bassist James hearing my shouts and sorting his list for me. Nice!

 Quick loo trips and brief chats with fellow punters saw an easy passage to the appointed hour of 8.30. The lights then smashed to black and the Pixies sauntered onstage, waving nonchalantly at the crowd as they set up, then David Lovering’s unmistakable drumbeat and Joey Santiago’s sinister descending riff heralded opener “Wave Of Mutilation”, and we were away, flying into a cascading and thunderous version of this classic. Newie “Human Crime” followed, all jagged and seething power with a soaring middle 8, then a stentorian “Monkey Gone To Heaven” saw Black Francis deliver an insouciant verse vocal before savagely roaring the “then God is Seven!!!” hook from the depths of his black soul. Quite brilliant, but incredibly this level was maintained with a pounding and relentless early salvo of old school Pixies moshpit catnip, the hurtling “Broken Face”, the squalling surf-punk paean “Head On” and a gravelly, growling “Planet Of Sound” prominent in this early barrage of gut punches. Hell of a start!

 

The Pixies were simply quite, quite brilliant tonight, the set perfectly paced, veering off after this initial clutch into somewhat calmer waters, showcasing the new album material which nonetheless soared above its’ recorded versions by some considerable distance. “Vault Of Heaven” harked back to the singer’s own solo oeuvre with its understated backwoods menace and “Dregs Of The Wine” was discordant and dissonant, before a lengthy intro to metronomic oldie “Gouge Away” then ceded to the almost joyous, change-of-pace “Nomatterday”, for me the best of the newer material on display tonight.

 But as ever, the oldies won the day, and Francis threw plenty in, regularly retreating to the dumb mic by the drumkit to plan out the next clutch of numbers with the band (ah, so that’s how they do it!). “Caribou” saw another leonesque roar from the depths of hell (or Francis’ larynx… whichever is more evil!); the crowd singalong to the slow-burn “Hey!” resounded around the whole arena; “Bone Machine” was all flesh-tinglingly creepy and seething backbeat sleaze, as was a later, almost yearning “Cactus”. A crazed superfast “Vamos” saw Francis’ gabbling Esperanto subsumed by Santiago’s undulating and stretched fiery middle 8 riffery, and the joyously profane “Nimrod’s Son” was a late highlight, segueing into and out of “Motorway To Roswell”, seemingly at random. All too soon, a mammoth 36-song (!) 2 hour plus set concluded with the elegiac “Winterlong”, nonetheless still overlaid with some squalling Santiago guitar, before the band took a lengthy and well-deserved curtain call, the band rather uncoordinatedly bowing together(ish), after Francis surveyed the adoring masses from each corner of the stage.

 A quick exit via the merch stand and an equally breathless hurtle home got us back just after midnight, 2 happy boys, thrilled to have caught this fabled band on such epic form. Listen to your dad, son; you can’t go too far wrong with The Pixies!

1,012 THE PIXIES, Fews, London O2 Brixton Academy, Monday 28th November 2016

Ah, The Pixies… Boston’s groundbreaking 80’s surf/ sleaze punk, pre-grunge ruffians, the band cited by Kurt Cobain as his inspiration for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and a band I saw twice back in the day and twice during the early stages of their post-2000 reunion incarnation. A band I totally loved (although not, I confess, as much as Hub contemporaries Throwing Muses), but also a band who for 10 years have been off my gig schedule, primarily due to tickets for their intermittent UK shows (usually at tonight’s venue) proving as rare as rocking-horse shit, but also due to the lack of new quality material emanating from a band a decade into their “reunion”, suggesting any such gigs would primarily be nostalgia trips. However, a couple of factors conspired to sway me around this time; the enthusiasm of my friend Rich May for the gig, plus the prospect of a new album in “Head Carrier”, an album which, it subsequently transpired, held together as a cohesive and fresh musical statement of intent, rather than a scattergun collection of old riffs and offcuts lying around the rehearsal space (as so much of predecessor “Indie Cindy” appeared to be). So I booked tix on the pre-sale (on the banks of the lake, one sunny morning after a swim!), and we were go!

Fellow gig counter Stuart joined us as well, and despite problems with Swindon traffic hampering our departure, we three had a chatty, entertaining and largely unhampered trip down to Stuart’s sneaky parking spot in Hammersmith, tubing across to this cavernous South London venue and hitting the hall just as support Fews were rounding off their set. They were mining one note for all it was worth, thrashing it in a MBV wall of noise style, which if representative of their material might mark them out as one to watch. Too little to tell though… Wandered down near the front, stage left, over near the gents, which utterly reeked, as if an totally smashed rugby team had been pissing all over the floor then rolling in it. Not pleasant.

Still, The Pixies joined us dead on 9, wandering on in front of the scaffolded banks of backlights to a bossa samba backing track. Vocalist Black Francis bolted on a large acoustic guitar and eased into the eerie slow-burn “ooh-ooh”’s of opener “Where Is My Mind”, then guitarist Joey Santiago forced squalling groans from his guitar for the more frantic and fractured “Nimrod’s Son”. However after this relatively promising start things drifted quite quickly early doors; a whole lot of plodding acoustic early numbers seemed very samey and perfunctorily delivered, the likes of “Break My Body”, “Winterlong” and “La La Love You” almost merging into one, an excellently jolly “Here Comes Your Man” the only break to the monotony. This early disappointment was compounded by the band’s complete lack of communication or even acknowledgement of the audience: whilst Mr. Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV’s solo outings as Frank Black saw him occasionally voluble, his Pixies alter ego Black Francis is notoriously taciturn, only once during the whole gig directly addressing the audience (when tuning up one time), other than in song. This gave the impression that the band at this point were playing solely for themselves, and I mused – are we really here?

Thankfully, 40 minutes in, things changed, suddenly and dramatically, for the infinitely better. Sturdy newie “Tenement Song” was delivered with startling conviction, previously lacking, and “Classic Masher” was brilliant, the male/ female vocal interplay between Francis and “new” bassist Paz Lenchantin and the soaring chorus of their best new number a thrilling highlight. Now we’ve got a proper Pixies gig, I thought, as the surf punk riffery of “Head On “ came crashing down and Francis really cut loose with this voice, the dragon roar spitting fire and filling this vast auditorium for once. And thankfully I was right, as thereafter the hits rolled on – the avalanche chorus of “UMass”, the racy, conversational and sexy “I’ve Been Tired”, an eerie pink-lit “Velouria”, the seething, savage venting roar of “Rock Music”, a smoke-strewn, quickfire “Isla De Encanta”, a ball-crushingly massive “Planet Of Sound” – all delivered with righteous fire and fury.

“Hey” and the rock-steady “Gouge Away” was followed by the inevitable “Debaser”, all air-punching hooks, humourless laughs and eyeball-slicing viciousness. Overplayed, maybe, but still undeniably a classic. Set closer “Tame” snuck in, with a deceptively groovy ease, before a sequence of huge roaring crescendos, each more massive than the last, closed the set, the band then taking a lengthy bow to all corners and soaking up the audience’s reverence. At this point the whole room was then drenched in smoke and the band started up again, into encore “Into The White”, totally apposite for this sudden white-out, Paz’ dispassionate vocals matching the fuzzy, intangible mood of this, one of my favourite Pixies numbers, before they effectively dropped the mic and slunk off under the cover of this dense smoky fog. No list (they didn’t use one – I checked!) but an ultimately splendid set from the band, once they’d bedded in and really found their teeth, a fact which we three all agreed on and reflected upon, during a journey home which took us off the closed M4 through Reading and back home for a red-eyed 1.30. Not so much a set of two halves – more appropriate being, that wasn’t half a great gig!

127 THE PIXIES, The Wolfgang Press, Bristol Studio, Monday 8 May 1989

A 2 car convoy of 7 of us all met up in the Horse And Jockey for drinks before going in for this one. The dirgelike support band made us wish we'd stayed there! Ran into lots of Swindon people at this gig; the town was well represented!

Got fairly near the front for The Pixies set; and what a set it turned out to be! The 3-pronged visual assault of the, erm, "corpulent" vocalist Black Francis, together with tiny bassist Kim and kinetic guitarist Joey, full of tension and nervous energy, was matched by the gigantic seamless power of their sound; huge, raw, ragged and jagged, but memorable and melodic at the same time. Operating in similar territory to the magnificent Throwing Muses, it's no surprise that they're also from the Muses hometown of Boston! "Vamos", the encore, featuring Joey playing his guitar with a can of Miller Lite (!), was particularly memorable. Aggressive, sexy, sleazy, The Pixies were brilliant beyond words; yet another Boston band showing the rest how it's done!

173 THE PIXIES, Gloucester Leisure Centre, Monday 15 October 1990

Preparations for this one started out badly, with news of Pixies vocalist Black Francis suffering from nervous exhaustion, which actually made the local TV news! Assured the gig was going ahead, we drove down but suffered a traffic jam and a car-park mare into the bargain! Met up with the posse in the pub beforehand, so missed support Barkmarket.

As for The Pixies, they played well; a less "rocking" set than I'd have liked, perhaps to be expected though due to Black Francis' collapse the previous night. However the old boy soldiered on through a set which featured way more good than bad; "Velouria" and "Allison" were stunning, and the climax "Vamos" shows that, even with one man ailing, they can still cut it as a pure primal rock force. Still a worthwhile night out!

640 THE 2004 "V" FESTIVAL (Saturday only), Weston Park, Staffordshire, Saturday 21 August 2004

Yup, we're trying the "Grown-ups" Festival! A couple of reasons for this;

1. the Reading Festival line-up is shite, so we're only doing one day there;
2. I originally thought that this Saturday was the day we were dropping Evan off in North Wales after his Summer 2 weeks with us. Wrong!
3. The Pixies! We'd totally failed to get tickets for their recent Brixton Academy run, so this was the best chance to see the reformed Boston Rock pioneers.

So we set off at 9 am, joining the queue off the M6 J12 at 11ish, and encountering slow-moving traffic along the A5, nevertheless still parking in the Weston Park car park just after 12. One immediate impression of this Festival is the size of the site - it took nearly half an hour to walk from car to arena, then the arena itself seemed nearly twice the size of Reading. We took a wander around while KOSHEEN played on the main stage - weak bland funk, with most songs sounding either like M People, or like TV ad music. Rachel couldn't even drown it out with beer, as she wasn't prepared to queue for tokens to buy beer, then queue for beer as well! Still wandering around the stalls during JAMIE CULLUM'S mainstage jazz set. He attempted some vocal gymnastics but ended up like a bellower rather than a singer; he's not really even very good at what he's trying to do, and the cover of "High And Dry" was even duller than Radiohead's version!

We found our first highlight of the day - the Hog Roast stand! - then after lunch we wandered over near the backstage entrance to hear SNOW PATROL, next up on the main stage. The Scots indie survivors, currently enjoying a high profile, kicked off with 3 corking numbers, all rocking, swirling, upbeat pop, with current single "Run" coming over all MBV with its' atmospheric mid-section. Then, just as they were beginning to surprise and delight, they blanded out with some plodding rock of the Travis/ Coldplay ilk. Very disappointing; this set was the definition of "started well then faded".

So we took a wander to the other end of the park, to the smaller but still open-air NME stage. MULL HISTORICAL SOCIETY were rounding off their poorly attended set with their eponymous signature tune, the greying vocalist looking even more like an accountant these days! Then everyone left, so we took a position right on the barriers for the first real musical highlight of the day. FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE sauntered onstage after an interminable soundcheck, kicked into "I've Got A Flair", then the sun came out! The Fountains have been missing in action for awhile, due to similar (but thankfully not as terminal) record company wranglings to those which beset fellow power-popsters the Gigolo Aunts, but are enjoying a high profile at the moment thanks to flippant, teen-friendly recent single "Stacy's Mom" and the heavy-rotation MTV2 video. Today they provided the perfect soundtrack to a hazily sunny Summer Saturday, with an immaculately chosen set, which read as follows;

I'VE GOT A FLAIR; DENISE; NO BETTER PLACE; RED DRAGON TATTOO; HEY JULIE; MEXICAN WINE; STACY'S MOM; RADIATION VIBE; SURVIVAL CAR; SINK TO THE BOTTOM

Totally encapsulating their summery vibe, "Stacy's Mom" predictably got a great reception, but "Radiation Vibe" was the real highlight. The perfect band at the perfect time.

Saw 3 numbers of the crap ZUTONS set, then trekked around again. Next up for us were the mainstage THRILLS, who unfortunately timed their set with the clouds rolling over, and thus were a bit hit and miss with their 60's Byrds-ian pop. Closer "Santa Cruz" got the best reaction after a disappointingly patchy set from a potential highlight. Tea then shopping, then over within earshot of BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB'S sleazed-up, dirty rock'n'roll set, all attitude but a little thin on distinguishable tunes. Ironically they mucked up "Punk Song", their best number. But never mind, we were only going to see half of their set anyway...

It was the witching hour. Time to join the large and expectant throng by mainstage, as dusk began to wrap a mysterious and symbolic shroud over the arena. Time for the denouement, the reason why we (and half the punters in this crowd, I'd wager) were here anyway.

Time for THE PIXIES! "Another Boston band showing the rest how it's done," I remarked back in 1988, and 16 years later they've reformed, their legend and legacy now firmly established, to once again show the rest how it's done. Tonight was a revelation, a triumph, a display of awesome power and precision. Drawing mainly from their first 2 full-length collections of rock, sex, sleaze, Spanish-tinged songs of incest and debasement, they were brilliant from the off. The angular, off-kilter beat of "Bone Machine", the metronomic, haunting "River Euphrates", the nonsensical, amphetamine-fast "Isla De Encanta", the inevitable sing-alongs for "Monkey Gone To Heaven" and "Debaser" (although this knowledgeable crowd, a mix of old rockers and first-timers, sang along to most of the numbers anyway), Kim Deal's pre-emptive grunge prototype "Gigantic", the trad but no less powerful "UMass". All were highlights, but in my view the tense, taut "Tame" eclipsed them all, Frank bellowing the hookline like an old sabretooth cat come to reclaim its' kingdom.

A stretched "Vamos", featuring Joey Santiago coaxing unearthly noises from his effects pedals, was followed by a slow "Wave Of Mutilation", before The Pixies soaked up the applause for a good few minutes before leaving.

And so did we! Headliners The Strokes had not a chance in hell of following that, so we (and a fair few others) headed back to the car park, getting home for 11. Best band of V - you really need to ask?

And the set of the day went thus;

BONE MACHINE
CRACKITY JONES
SOMETHING AGAINST YOU
RIVER EUPHRATES
WAVE OF MUTILATION (FAST)
BROKEN FACE
ISLA DE ENCANTA
I BLEED
NUMBER 13 BABY
CACTUS
HEY
MR. GRIEVES
MONKEY GONE TO HEAVEN
GIGANTIC
GOUGE AWAY
DEAD
DEBASER
TAME
CARIBOU
UMASS
VELOURIA
PLANET OF SOUND
WHERE IS MY MIND?
NIMROD'S SON
VAMOS
WAVE OF MUTILATION (SLOW)

671 THE PIXIES, The Futureheads, London Alexandra Palace, Wednesday 31 August 2005

Having opted out of Reading Festival this year - where the Pixies headlined and would have been pretty much the only reason to go - this gig was a must! That, allied with the fact I'd had one of my worst working days ever, meant I was really up for this one! So we hit the road at 5 and parked up in the palatial grounds of this very grand venue at 7.30. Unfortunately, this meant we had to watch support The Futureheads, after we'd taken a shuttle bus from the car park to the palace on the hill, and gotten in. The 'heads are extremely derivative of the current Wire/XTC jerky New Wave sound, and have no presence or tunes to rub together to make fire! Their best number by far isn't even their own - a cover of Kate Bush's "Hounds Of Love", which they did late on in this poor set.

The place filled up considerably between sets. A grand venue, this; a huge auditorium with an ornate glass roof which made it very hot! So we sweated it out, running into our London friends before the entrance of the Pixies at 9, to dry ice and rapturous cheers.

Finally recognised as the pioneers of US alt-rock that they are, the now-reformed Pixies are finally reaping the financial rewards with the big big gigs (this one of course following their Reading headline slot). You could excuse them for going into cruise-and-collect mode, and certainly the opening part of the set was restrained and low-key, easing themselves in with slower numbers from their canon of work (an eerie "Where Is My Mind" a highlight here), as if they were paying reverence to their material. Even an early "Vamos", with Joey extracting squally riffs from his guitar with the aid of a drumstick, seemed less manic than of yore.

However, following a spooky "Into The White", and a strident, bellowed "Ed Is Dead" (my favourite Pixies song!) the set really took off as the band loosened up and let fly. The bass-heavy, massive "Planet Of Sound" followed, really bringing the noise, and by an awesome "Tame", vocalist Frank Black (or should that be Black Francis, given he's back in the Pixies?) was roaring like the angered behemoth of old. The inevitable "Monkey Gone To Heaven" (which Rachel had been jonesing for throughout the set) followed a frantic interlude, and by "Debaser", still the snarling cornerstone of indie discos everywhere, we were enthralled, caught in the power of this harsh, sleazy, noisy yet strangely uplifting rock.

The 1 hour 15 minute set seemed over far too soon, and Kim Deal was then persuaded to perform "Gigantic", the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" quiet/loud template number which ended the set, all 4 band members then wishing each other goodnight before basking in the deserved adulation of a job bloody well done, and money well earned.

By that time we were off! Got a jump on everyone, ran down the hill to the car, and back on the M4 by 11 and home by midnight. Another in the recent run of big gigs, but perfectly executed by those returning heroes The Pixies!

I didn't get a set-list, but just FYI the set was as follows;

SLOW WAVE OF MUTILATION
IN HEAVEN
WHERE IS MY MIND
LA LA LOVE YOU
HERE COMES YOUR MAN
BLOWN AWAY
HOLIDAY SONG
VAMOS
WINTERLONG
INTO THE WHITE
SUBBACULTA
IS SHE WEIRD
ED IS DEAD
PLANET OF SOUND
CACTUS
TAME
HEY
CARIBOU
STORMY WEATHER
ISLA DE ENCANTA
SOMETHING AGAINST YOU
ISLA DE ENCANTA REPRISE
MONKEY GONE TO HEAVEN
GOUGE AWAY
BONE MACHINE
DEBASER
FAST WAVE OF MUTILATION

GIGANTIC