The night started when I took off work early and waited in line for about two hours—totally worth it, as I made it to the front row. The opening band, Black Gold, had a lot of energy but unfortunately played songs that all sounded extremely derivative, which is slightly ironic considering the band they were opening for is known especially for their originality. When Black Gold's lead singer, about twenty minutes into the half-hour set, announced, "We've got a couple more songs for you," a number of people to the left of me were very audibly dismayed with this news. He fittingly responded, "Fuck you, you fucking hecklers!", then hastily added, "I'm just fucking with you." Gotta love audience-band tension.
When it was time for the Pixies to take the stage, a huge screen behind the stage started playing a seven-minute montage of scenes from the 1929 silent film Un Chien Andalou, the topic of the first song off Doolittle, "Debaser". Scenes of breast-fondling and bovine eye-slicing set to some creepy ambient music put everyone in the right mood. The Pixies appeared as soon as the film ended, and the roar from the crowd, which had already been pretty loud from all the anticipatory yelling, got really deafening. They first played some B-sides, then dove into Doolittle and played the entire album straight through. Here's a video of them performing "Debaser" that night (note the gaggle of photographers in front of the stage):
Besides some minor vocal variations, the performed songs sounded exactly as they do on the album. Kim Deal provided some brief, amusing banter in between songs (like announcing at what point in the set the songs would have reached the end of Side 1 on the vinyl record), but the band was pretty focused on just playing the songs, which suited everyone just fine. The performance put on by Deal, Black Francis, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering was flawless and intense from start to finish. They came back on for two encores, during which the fog machine produced so much fog that, at one point, I could barely see the hands in front of me for several minutes.
Also, that screen behind them displayed some of the most bizarre and disturbing imagery I've seen at a concert. At times, it was a bit distracting, since the images were often interesting enough to simply watch by themselves. Regardless, it was an added bonus for an audience that probably would have been thrilled if the Pixies had come on stage and just talked about tax returns for 90 minutes.
And I think that's the main reason why the concert was such a great experience: the reaction from the fans, both young and old(er), was so ecstatic and personal. Granted, I can't say I've been at a concert where everybody was booing; the audience members were there because they wanted to be there, after all. But because the Pixies are alternative-rock legends, coupled with the fact that they put on such a thrilling show playing such good songs, the night had a distinctive feel to it. There was an almost surreal feeling of connectedness with the band, like no time had passed since the late 1980s and now (not that as a child I had any idea who they were back then, of course). Hard to put it into words, but maybe others have felt this with established bands they really like.
Speaking of which—when/where/what was the best (or one of the best) concert(s) you've been to? I'd love to hear other's experiences.
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