Frank Black has had a busy year. He kicked it off by gathering his recording studio mates who helped create his sophomore album Teenager Of The Year and played a couple handful of dates in North America and Europe, and now Pixies are in the middle of their two date per city tour in North America after extensive touring of this set up in Europe last year. The band’s been a pretty durable road outfit since the 2004 reunion, and this pair of shows would mark the fifth time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them since 2023.
The gambit for this tour was to take a deep look at the back half of their original discography on the opening night, as well as playing a wide swath of what they termed ‘classics’ for the second night. Deservedly so, a lot of the material from Surfer Rosa, Come On Pilgrim and Doolittle have been a played a lot over the years, but during the ascendency and decline of what Black termed the “College Rock era,” Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde vaulted the band to lofty new heights before the plug was pulled. Going back to old and rarely played material can be a risky move, especially when one books a 5,000 capacity room for back to back nights, but overall the band pulled it off with the aplomb and surety of a David Lovering magic trick.
Playing an entire record usually means songs that have never been played live before get their debut, but surprisingly “Space (I Believe In)” was the only song from the 29 songs comprising those two records to have had its debut. (If setlist.fm can be trusted). The space theme is a fairly consistent one with Black, and I often wondered if David Lynch ever had considered using their music in one of his movies; they paid homage to the late auteur by playing “In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)” each night, one of just eight repeat songs, with Emma Richardson’s beautiful vocals leading the way. A less successful effort was the repeat Doolittle b side “Into The White,” where it was hard to clear Kim Deal’s voice from my memory banks but on the backing vocals front all was good.
The mostly unadorned, the first night’s stage setup had a clever feature where the globes on the cover of Bossanova were lit up at the backline, and then rotated 90 degrees to form the eyeballs on Trompe Le Monde. Ever industrious, there was little interaction from the crowd aside from Black’s brief college radio remarks and Black dropping the nugget that “The Sad Punk” was inspired by Jack Nitzsche’s “The Lonely Surfer,” there was even less the second night. Heads down, get to work.
The second night did run into a bit of a lull though. Even with a set full of older material, Pixies didn’t want to make you forget that they put out a new record last year. Though the two nights sold well, the classics was definitely more full and playing seven straight new* songs took the wind from the crowd sails a bit, even though spots like “Primrose” and “The Vegas Suite” reclaimed part of that early magic. (* 2014’s “Snakes” definitely does not count as a new song but I don’t think many had Indie Cindy in heavy rotation.
If someone like David Bowie thinks your song is good enough to record that’s a pretty nice stamp of validation and “Cactus” got things back on track. After a couple of songs (“All Over The World,” “Planet Of Sound”) for people who didn’t go the previous night, it was all wheat no chaff from there. “Tame” captures the zeitgeist of Pixies interactions superbly, Santiago’s jagged Les Paul skittering over Frank’s slashing Telecaster and anguished screams with Richardson supplying eerily heavenly ah-hahs. Welcome back to your old home, Pixies.
Last observation. Santiago is a pretty original and inventive guitarist but aside from seeing this last year in Melbourne, I can’t recall a prior instance during “Vamos” where he basically played a one finger guitar solo. Taking the input cord from his guitar, he conjured squalls of feedback using just his index finger, and closed it out by plugging it back in, scraping the guitar strings across his chest and finishing with his hat banging across the neck. Yes, more of that please!
Kurt Vile and The Violators have been tour support since the tour kickoff in Vegas last month but for some reason Boston got Momma as the Friday opener. The quartet brewed up a buzzy sound reminiscent of ’90s guitar-heavy alt-rock, and while they had female singers the ghosts of Corgan or Louise Post were never far away. Though a generation removed, they proved to be a good pairing.
I’ve been a Vile fan (and his Violators, the last remaining OG member being Jesse Trbovich) since I saw him play in 2009 and that hasn’t changed. He really hasn’t mixed up the basic sound much, but when you have a winning formula don’t screw around with it. Coca-Cola found that out the hard way. Being an opening set, Vile had a shorter duration to work with and focused mainly on the last record with a song from the most recent EP kicking things off. His lackadaisical vocals play rope-a-dope with the mid-tempo guitar chug, gently gliding over the notes.
He’s expanded to a five piece now with the addition of a keyboardist as well as Adam Langellotti replacing the late Rob Laasko. At a fairly scant eight song set, we got to see a decent selection of Vile’s guitar collection, and he told me after the show that the orange hollow body Gretsch used on “Wakin’ On A Pretty Day” had belonged to the late Dallas Good of The Sadies. Quite the pedigree! Speaking of “Days,” the band revamped the intro of the song since I’ve seen them play it live, and in a weird twist that very song was played over the venue PA about 5 minutes before they took the stage. Maybe the soundman playing a slight prank? Trbovich also told me there’s a new album in the works, so keep your eyes peeled for that early next year.
