(OK, this post is a little late, but I find I’ve still songs from the show bouncing around in my head, so this is both a reivew and attempt at exorcism)
Twelve years later, and the Pixies are still damn good.
Having seen them a number of times before, I noticed that they took a little longer to really get into the show, but when they did, it was much like seeing them back in the day. The shrieking was a little shorter, flatter, and quieter, but there were some more interesting treatment of songs (especially a really slow version of Nimrod’s Son). They knew what the crowd wanted to hear - Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa, and Doolittle. None of that over-produced stuff from the last couple of albums, except for Is She Weird? and UMass (the show was in Lowell). Being old and lame, I spent the whole show sitting comfortably up in the stadium seating. It looked like the rest of the crowd of 40ish-year-olds made the same decision. Interestingly, the floor was filled with hordes of… kids. I mean, really young kids, fifteen to twenty. There were some attempts at moshing and crowd surfing, which looked really funny to me - do kids still do that, or was this some sort of retro thing, I wonder?
Anyway, I certainly hope Los Pixies make the big bucks from this. They certainly deserve it.
Mission of Burma was excellent. I’ll admit I’m not as familiar as I should be with their music, but they seemed to hit some favorites (though not mine) and had some new stuff, too. I recommend seeing ‘em, if you can stomach the occasional art school wanker anti-Bush remark.
The swag on offer all looked very cool, but I resisted temptation, imagining myself walking down the street in the spring and passing a fifteen year old in the same t shirt.