The Pixies - The Metropolis (Montreal, QC) - April 14, 2011

The mood at The Metropolis was bordering on rapturous even before The Pixies took the stage. The crowd was so enthusiastic it felt like I was at game seven of the Stanley Cup. But hockey was not on the agenda this evening; we were there to see The Montreal Canadiens Of Indie Rock play Doolittle, their most celebrated album, in its entirety as part of the never-ending Doolittle 20th anniversary tour (the record was released in April 1989). The band was in tip-top shape, and as the show progressed the cheering and applause only increased. Eventually, people started spontaneously jumping up and down and dancing in the aisles as if Frank Black had just cured an old lady’s blindness.

This was my first time seeing a band play one of their classic albums in full, a trend that seems to be gaining in popularity among aging rockers. On the downside, there was little spontaneity once they got going- everyone knew exactly what song was coming up next. But that was really the only con. It was so great to hear all those awesome songs, especially the more abstract deep cuts that probably haven’t been played out too many times since the record first came out.

The show was billed as an evening of Doolittle in sequence plus a bunch of B-sides. They started off the show with two or three of those B-sides, which quieted down the crowd a bit and built up the anticipation even more. Then when Kim Deal played the opening notes of “Debaser” the place just exploded, and the intensity did not go down until the house lights went up almost two hours later. It was thrilling to hear Joey Santiago rip all his crazy lead lines over the music as Black and Deal sang all those weirdo lyrics. The experience deepened my appreciation of an album I already loved.

After the Doolittle song cycle it was back to the B-sides. It was cool to hear “Caribou” and Neil Young‘s “Winterlong”, but I could have done without the “soft” version of “Wave of Mutilation”, having already heard it in the main set. I was really hoping they would throw in some of their other A-side material (so much to choose from!), and again The Pixies did not disappoint: they closed an already-incredible show with “Gigantic” and “Where Is My Mind?”