Last Sun, went to the Pixies 20th Anniversary of Doolittle conert at the Centre. Went with Sonia, Steph, Sean and Susan.
One of the best concerts I’ve been to ever. The production was impressive with the huge video backdrop that was put to excellent use during the concert. Some wonderful macabre scenes from the Dali works that they obviously have been inspired by.
Frank hasn’t lost an ounce of power from his voice and his screams are as primal as they’ve always been. And Kim’s backups and rare leads were as haunting as ever.
They gave off the same powerful sound you’ve always known them to be. And what I love about them that makes concert-going a blast is their songs are short and energetic. This means you get to hear a lot of their work.
I was very impressed with the way the organized the set lists. They started off with some B-side stuff and then went into the A-side meat of their success by riffing out Debaser.
The encores were also well planned out as well with the 1st encore being composed of familiar B-sides such as the surferlike version of Wave and the spooky dirge “Into the White” which was performed amazingly by Kim. How the band played their instruments through the monster fog was a mystery.
The final encore was a 3 song set that consisted of their pinnacle moneymaking songs: Caribou, Where is My Mind and then finally Gigantic. Well played!
The band never ceases to amaze me with their energy and I was shocked to hear they were to play 2 more consecutive dates in Toronto starting the following evening. I’m impressed that the sound/road group will be able to set this complex stage up again so quickly.
The crowd was an interesting mixture: The super ecclectic “alt” types, the stereotypical nerds….both consisting of older and younger generations (i.e. the older being the group that were university agers at the time the Pixies were in their prime). Then there were the normals both young and old. The old normals is where I fall in. I was surprised to see so many young people there. No doubt now in my mind that the Pixies music has the ability to stand the test of time and span generations.