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!