| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Triakel |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 08:39:45
Below is a feature article from the front page of the Nov. 5, 2004 Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Arts & Entertainment section (http://www.startribune.com/stories/457/5063160.html). The link leads to a cool photo of the Pixies playing the now-defunct Northern Lights record store in downtown Minneapolis back in 1988.
The Pixies are finally as big as they deserved to be
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
November 7, 2004
AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Frank Black and Kim Deal were sharing a laugh as they sorted through the free T-shirts, caps and coffee mugs left in their trailer backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival. Once the most acrimonious members of the Pixies, they appeared to be getting along fine amid the swag and other extra take-home of their band's first reunion tour.
As he sat down for an interview before playing to about 30,000 fans in September, Black -- who used to go by Black Francis and still prefers Charles Thompson (his real name) in person -- was frank about the fact that he needs a bigger-sized T than when he last performed with his groundbreaking rock band 12 years ago.
"Everybody's saying, 'Look at fat Frank,' " cracked the ever-sarcastic frontman. "But that's just my way of distracting from the other B.S."
The bald-headed, maniacal-voiced singer doesn't seem to care about all the barbs and inquiries being poked at him and the band. That's probably because -- and on this topic he is especially blunt -- they're getting paid 10 times what he says they used to make, on a wildly successful reunion tour that takes over St. Paul's Roy Wilkins Auditorium on Wednesday and Thursday.
A couple of years ago, Black was quoted as saying a Pixies reunion wouldn't happen unless somebody in the band needed an organ transplant.
Not only do the four Pixies have clean bills of health; they're drug- and alcohol-free on this tour. That's the first thing people ask about Deal, whose addictions were just one of the problems that caused the Pixies' chilly breakup via a fax machine in 1992.
"It definitely helps," Black said of sobriety. "Something about getting stoned and drunk makes it hard to work together when you spend 300 days a year together, especially when you're whiny, 25-year-old rock stars."
Being older, in fact, is what he points to most to explain how the Pixies finally made a reunion work.
"Everything is just so much easier," said Black, who's 39. "We don't let the same things bother us that used to. We don't have the egos we used to, myself first and foremost."
But while sobriety and maturity made the Pixies reunion possible, money is what made it happen.
Don't call it a comeback
Aside from Prince's "Musicology" tour, the Pixies reunion is the concert industry's biggest surprise hit of the year. The difference is that theirs isn't really a comeback. The band, which formed in Boston in 1986, never enjoyed this kind of commercial success.
With its first two albums, 1988's "Surfer Rosa" and 1989's "Doolittle," the Pixies became a cult phenomenon based on haunting, "Eraserhead"-style imagery; cleverly rhythmic (although often nonsensical) lyrics, and songs that could go from a whisper to a scream with the swift kick of a guitar pedal.
However, only one of those albums -- and neither of the two that followed -- went gold, signifying a half-million in U.S. sales. The Pixies' biggest (and last) tour was opening for U2 in 1992, and for the most part those shows stank. Their only real radio hit was the jangly 1989 pop tune "Here Comes Your Man," which barely broke the top 40 and also didn't represent their best work.
Ironically, 1989 was two years too early for the Pixies to aim for a radio hit. FM programmers finally made room for modern-rock bands in 1991 with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," a song that Kurt Cobain described as an overt Pixies rip-off.
"They really laid the blueprint for what modern-rock radio is today," said Andy Cirzan of Jam Productions, the promoter behind the band's St. Paul and Chicago concerts.
The Midwest shows are solid proof that the Pixies have become bigger since breaking up. They're playing venues twice the size of the ones they hit back in their heyday, and they're still selling out.
In Chicago, the band will play the Aragon Ballroom five nights in a row, a record at the 4,000-capacity venue. In St. Paul, Wednesday's show at the 5,000-capacity Wilkins was added after Thursday's sold out in a day.
"Everybody knew there would be a lot of excitement," Cirzan said of the reunion tour. "But if I told you I knew they could do the kind of numbers they're doing, I'd be totally lying."
Even the band members didn't count on the tour being so gigantic until after the first gig, April 13 at the Fine Line Music CafEin Minneapolis.
"I wouldn't say I'm totally surprised because I had a suspicion it'd be bigger [than before]," Black said. "But you never really know until the shows go on sale."
Cobain's outspoken love for the Pixies is one theory about why they're bigger now. Other bands have pointed to them as an influence, too, including U2, Pearl Jam, Weezer and, most significantly, Radiohead, which reportedly agreed to perform at this year's Coachella Music Festival in California because the Pixies were going to be there.
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood recently told British television, "The reason we don't use as much guitar now is there are only a handful of Pixies albums. You can't keep copying them."
Radio stations actually play the Pixies more nowadays, and the edgy single "Monkey Gone to Heaven" -- which is one of their best songs -- gets spun as much as "Here Comes Your Man." Also, their anthemic rocker "Where Is My Mind?" was used in the pivotal last scene of "Fight Club," the 1999 Brad Pitt flick that has (sadly?) become biblical to PlayStation-playing young men everywhere.
Despite all that attention, the band members have mostly had meager success outside the Pixies.
Black and Deal started out relatively strong in their solo careers -- especially Deal with the Breeders' 1994 hit "Cannonball" -- but their albums since have generally tanked. Guitarist Joey Santiago had his band the Martinis but usually only got noticed when he toured with Black. Drummer David Lovering was working as a magician.
Black did not deny that their bank accounts could use a boost. He's about to become a first-time father in January.
"But it wasn't just so papa could buy baby some new shoes," he said. Having a kid "is just one of those things that makes you realize how petty things like band squabbles and egos really are."
"Besides," he added defensively, "There are worse things we could've done [to make money] than reunite."
Reunited for good?
Not only have the reunion shows been a bona-fide commercial hit, but critics and fans generally agree they've been a musical success, too.
The Pixies were notorious for erratic live shows. Sometimes they were messy on purpose, such as the times the band arranged its set lists in alphabetical order or reverse chronological order (starting with the encore first).
This time around, the concerts are decidedly focused and straight-ahead. They are heavy on material from the first half of the band's career, which Black said is no coincidence.
"Things were more fun in the band [early on]," he said. "There are a lot of things I like about the later albums, too, but those early ones had a little more spirit and innocence."
The shows feature only one new song, Deal's "Bam Thwok," which the Pixies recorded for the "Shrek 2" soundtrack (typically, it got rejected). They're also regularly playing two covers: "Ain't That Pretty All," recorded for a new Warren Zevon tribute album, and Neil Young's "Winterlong," which Black said is usually his favorite song of the night.
"I think it's where Kim and I sing best together," he said.
Deal's position in the band is another noticeable difference. The bassist and co-vocalist sings more tunes by herself now than she did toward the end of the band's heyday. She didn't even have a track on its final album, 1991's "Trompe le Monde."
Black admitted, "You could say I've come to appreciate her role in the band more."
That's the nearest he came, though, to expressing any new fondness for Deal or his other bandmates. Asked to comment on what their relationships are like now, the frontman -- who is notorious for telling journalists where to stick it -- got testy. But he also got rather insightful.
"Are we going to go to the movies together and hold hands on our days off? No, of course not," he said.
"We're four people who went into business together 20 years ago, and we're carrying on that business relationship. Yes, it's a business we care about and want to succeed. But at the end of the day, that's why we're together. [It's] not because we're friends."
Officially, there are no plans for the reunion to continue past this year and no plans to record. Black stuck to that story when asked, but -- as his organ-transplant comment from a few years back attests -- he has been known to change his mind. Under the right circumstances, of course.
The Pixies
With: The Datsuns.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed. & Thu.
Where: Roy Wilkins Auditorium, 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul.
Tickets: $35. Thu. show is sold out. 651-989-5151.
Chris Riemenschneider is at chrisr@startribune.com.
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| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Daisy Girl |
Posted - 11/18/2004 : 20:21:49
Thanks for the review and cool pic guys!
The second review said they didn't play Something Against You... I swear they played it at the Fineline too!
http://www.campervanbeethoven.com/gearstolen/ |
| dayanara |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 12:53:34
Thanks for posting those! The first one, in particular, was really great. But, uh...
quote:
Originally posted by Triakel
...They're also regularly playing two covers: "Ain't That Pretty All," recorded for a new Warren Zevon tribute album, and Neil Young's "Winterlong,"...
Say wha?
(in heaaaaaaveeeeen!!!)
That is indeedy a cool picture. The origins of Kim's soccer mom hairdo are revealed.
Around here, intolerance will not be tolerated |
| hWolsky |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 12:26:59
i like snails...
Hummm snails....
HW |
| hWolsky |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 12:26:21
"as his organ-transplant comment from a few years back attests "
Euh what? I donte understande... I am french... What ze hell?
HW |
| Triakel |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 08:46:20
Below is the Star-Tribune's review of the Nov. 10 concert at Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul (http://www.startribune.com/stories/457/5080104.html). Compares the arena show to the Fine Line Music Cafe show in Minneapolis last spring.
Concert review: Reunited Pixies take Wilkins arena head on
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
November 11, 2004
Turns out, the Pixies would have made a pretty decent arena-rock band.
The reunited alternative-rock heroes -- who broke up in 1992 before achieving much commercial success -- took over St. Paul's Roy Wilkins Auditorium on Wednesday night like they were always meant to be as big as their reputation.
The Wilkins is about twice the size of the venues that the Boston band headlined in their late-'80s/early-'90s heyday -- and about eight times as big as Minneapolis' Fine Line Music Cafe, where they played their first show together in 12 years last April. Considering they also have a sold-out show tonight, this reunion tour is proving to be a good test of the band's almost mythological influence on modern rock.
Wednesday's set was strangely tentative at first, though. They opened with three of their mellowest numbers: "In Heaven,"Wave of Mutilation" (the downbeat U.K. version) and "Here Comes Your Man." For the 3,500 or so fans waiting to hear frontman Frank Black's trademark rock shriek and guitarist Joey Santiago's wailing leads, the anticipation was downright unsettling.
A few more songs into the 90-minute performance, it was obvious the Pixies were working with a game plan. Their set list gradually built from slower to faster songs. The jittery "Nimrod's Son" led into the debaucherous "Mr. Grieves." A snarling version of "Dead" bled into "No. 13 Baby" (actually the set's 13th song).
Like the horror movies the band paid homage to later in "Debaser," the pacing got heavier and more wicked. By the halfway point, both the crowd and band were at full tilt during gems such as "Tame,"U Mass" and an especially fierce cover of the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Head On."
The cover song wasn't the only way Wednesday's show differed from the Fine Line gig. Other tunes including "Subbacultcha" and "Something Against You" were added. More importantly, the band simply sounded better, especially Black and bassist Kim Deal, who had their dueling vocals down to a science in "I Bleed" and "Velouria."
Some things about the Pixies never change, though. Notorious for being one of the most immobile and impersonal bands on stage, they only strayed from that reputation a few times Wednesday -- like when the other members egged on drummer David Lovering to sing "La-La Love You."
The typically dormant Santiago actually showed the brightest flash of personality. He performed a long, extravagant solo in "Vamos" that incorporated a drumstick, guitar stand and lots of silly smiling. It was not exactly Eddie Van Halen level of showmanship, but it also wasn't the only thing about Wednesday's show to suggest this hip little underground band could have been full-blown rock stars.
Chris Riemenschneider is at chrisr@startribune.com.
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