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dayanara
* Dog in the Sand *
Australia
1811 Posts |
 Posted - 12/09/2004 : 21:05:59
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http://www.harvardindependent.com/news/2004/12/09/Arts/Concert.Review.The.Pixies.On.Tour-826963.shtml
My first idea for this article was to set it up as a sort of travelogue, following my journeys across the state of Massachusetts as I watched the Pixies perform for three consecutive nights. I bought a little pocket memo pad at CVS for the occasion; whenever I pulled it out and starting writing on it, I felt like a cartoon caricature of a '50s reporter who had somehow misplaced his trench coat and fedora (an image which led to a spirited internal debate about whether or not I would look good in a trench coat and fedora). I kept my travelogue for most of the first day, recording such interesting observations as "Day One, 4:00 PM: Spirits are high as my blockmate Dave and I set out in his mom's car for the Mullins Center in Amherst. I've been listening to Surfer Rosa all morning; currently, we're rocking Trompe Le Monde over the car stereo" or "7:55 PM: I just stood in line for fifteen minutes and dropped $20 for a t-shirt - I feel like such a fucking fanboy" or "9:30 PM: They're opening with 'Bone Machine.' Sadly, Frank didn't scream, 'This is a song for Carol!' (or whatever the hell he screams at the beginning of the studio version)."
I abandoned the travelogue idea when, looking over my notes after the first night, I realized how lame and banal the whole thing was. In fact, it was just plain irrelevant - I had said almost nothing about the Pixies themselves. I think that subconsciously this was what had attracted me to the idea in the first place: by making the article about myself, I could avoid having to write about the Pixies. Because, honestly, what could I possibly write about the Pixies?
Would I write about how they've aged? It's certainly the number-one issue surrounding the ballyhooed reunion tour. Unfortunately, I was all of eight years old when Frank Black broke up the band in 1993, and at the time my cultural awareness was limited at best. The Pixies were never a particularly photogenic band, and I would have no concept at all of how they used to look, or what their live show was like, had it not been for the DVD recording of a 1988 London show that they released earlier this year. Would I try to make some forced, second-hand judgments about how they've held up, based solely on that forty-minute concert DVD? I could write that all the men have gone bald; that Frank Black, never a skinny man, has absolutely ballooned, and moreover has fallen into the disconcerting habit of resting acoustic guitars on his huge protruding belly; that Kim Deal is mysteriously more attractive now, at 43, than she was at 27 (that's not just my opinion, by the way - every one of my many different concert companions over the course of the three nights agreed). I could write that all of the band members seem much more confident on-stage now, especially Frank and Joey, who were unsettling non-presences on the DVD, staring into the distance or awkwardly swaying like Brian Wilson-style fanophobes. But somehow, trying to assess the way that time has treated the band, when I only really have first-hand experience of their latest incarnation, seems more than a little disingenuous.
Would I write about how they performed? Were this any normal concert review, then that would of course be the obvious place to start. I could write that for most of the time during all three shows the band was perfectly still; that the breaks between songs were at most fifteen or twenty seconds long; that their stage banter was largely nonexistent, and, when it finally came, inaudible (the one exception occurring during the November 30th show at U-Mass Amherst: after the band played "U-Mass," to the crowd's predictable delight, Kim got Frank to talk a little bit about the residence hall where he and Joey had lived when they went to college there; Frank told a mildly amusing little anecdote about a mural of Che Guevara on the wall outside of their room which they had thought was actually Jimi Hendrix for most of the year). I could write that, despite all that, they still managed to create incredible energy, and that the crowd was involved and active to a degree that one might not expect, considering that these were huge arena performances put on by an indie rock act that is, at most, only marginally famous. But then, the Pixies are not your typical out-of-the-mainstream act, and it was obvious that everyone in the crowd was a devoted fan, singing along to every lyric of even the obscure gems like "In Heaven" or "Winterlong." The people were there because they loved the Pixies, and they might very well have been satisfied with half-hearted renditions of the old standards. I know I probably would have been - there's something magical just in the realization that the man who wrote "Debaser" and "Where Is My Mind?" is actually standing right in front of you, and that he brought the whole band along with him. It would have been hard for the crowd not to be energized by the show.
Would I write about how they sounded? After all, that's really the crux of the matter. I could write that they did play pretty much everything that might be considered one of their standards, as well as a few less well-known songs. The three set lists were almost identical, going through twelve of Doolittle's fifteen tracks (including two different versions of "Wave of Mutilation" on two of the nights - I saw them play the song a total of five times in three days) and about half of Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim. I could write that Frank and Kim's voices are pretty similar today to what they were 15 years ago; Frank's yelping is maybe a little weaker, and Kim maybe sounds a little purer, but if you squint you can't really tell the difference. I could write that the live versions were nearly identical to the studio versions: the number of major departures could be counted on one hand, consisting mostly of some dramatically slowed-down sections in "Mr. Grieves" and "Nimrod's Son," as well as some extra guitar heroics from Joey during "Vamos." Perhaps sometimes faithful reproduction of studio tracks doesn't make for a great live show; here, I think, it did. Hearing the tracks that I love, live and in person, somehow made the same guitar note, the same lyric, the same shift in dynamics that I had heard a thousand times before unexpectedly revelatory. It added something to my appreciation of the songs, actually making me like the album versions that much more.
What can I possibly write about the Pixies? In the end, I think I can really only say this: they were always perfectly together, never flubbing a note or missing a cue; they played songs that were undeniably amazing; they had the crowd eating out of their hand from start to finish on all three nights; they played a massive amount of material, including almost everything a fan might want to hear; and they made me leave each show exhausted from dancing, hoarse from singing along, and saying to myself, "I really don't think they could have played a better show than the show they just played." Which, I guess, is more than I can say about most bands.
It took Colby Bogie '07 (bogie@fas) 1,125 words to answer the question, "What can I possibly write about the Pixies?" Maybe he should have thought about that before he started to write about the Pixies.
The stage divides us/He is on one side of it/I am far away - Frank haiku |
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The Pixies on Tour (Harvard gig review, sort of)
