Pixies / Delays - London Brixton Academy - 2/6/04
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Pixies Set-List: 'Winterlong', 'Nimrod's Son', 'The Holiday Song', 'Here Comes Your Man', 'Vamos', 'In Heaven', 'Wave Of Mutilation' (UK Surf)', 'I Bleed', 'Monkey Gone To Heaven', 'Bone Machine', 'Velouria', 'Dead', 'No. 13 Baby', 'Subbacultcha' 'Gouge Away', 'Caribou', 'Hey', 'Cactus', 'River Euphrates', 'Debaser', 'Broken Face', 'Something Against You', 'Tame', ENCORE, 'Gigantic', 'Wave Of Mutilation', 'Into The White'.
You can't touch us now. You older lot, you 'originals', you've got nothing on us any longer. We can stake our claim on the Pixies, reclaimed for a generation who, now more than ever, love them just as much. Don't just say they're getting fat and bald and it was better when they were playing support slots in the Town and Country Club, we're not listening. We've seen them, and they were incredible. Sorry, guys - they're ours now.
Bless Delays, they're trying their cool haircuts off, but of course nobody's here for them, and their fine efforts fall largely on deaf ears. The ones listening, however, are treated to a shining performance in which the band utilizes the only thing that veers them towards the overly nice on their 'Faded Seaside Glamour' LP, a necessary bite. Here, even the wistful, sweeping 'Nearer Than Heaven' can stomp its way over a stage in a live setting, and the brilliant 'Long Time Coming' (why don't more people write songs where they essentially put three different choruses in a row?) even more pounding. Shame more weren't paying attention, truth be told. But for what followed, attention isn't the word - devotion is far more apt.
What follows will be some unashamed, utterly defensible hero-worshipping, because that's what happened that night - nothing short of total adoration. They're playing with us, they start with a b-side cover of Neil Young's 'Winterlong', but we know the words, because they taught them to us. Then some familiarity, as thousands of us get to scream 'you are the son of a motherf**ker' at Black Francis / Charles Thompson / Frank Black (precisely what are we meant to call him these days?). 'Here Comes Your Man' is pure bliss and Kim Deal's voice is heavenly, but this isn't a poppy, play-it-easy ride by any means. Not even a fifth of the way into the set, there's all five minutes of 'Vamos's two-chord noise weird-out, where Joey Santiago leaves his guitar in the middle of the stage, playing it only via the mediums of projectile drumsticks and a vast array of pedals. He throws the drumstick back to whence it came (David Lovering's capable hands) in time to play the manic solo, but it gets dropped. Oh well, there had to be one instance of imperfection, no?
Heck, there weren't any others. Well, they didn't play 'Where Is My Mind?' but it says a hell of a lot that we didn't even notice until hours later. That's how on form this band is: they can omit their most famous track without anyone leaving feeling they've been anything less than blessed.
And it's not the crowd interaction that makes us feel this valued as an audience (because there is none), but the attention to detail. Black Francis knows we want him to get that scream on 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' just right, and he does. We're willing every note of Santiago's solo in 'Hey' to be perfect, and it is. Right then, the most beautiful thing happens, even if (in our delirium) we dreamt it up. In the middle of the solo, Kim seems to be as transfixed by the magic emanating from that golden Gibson as we are. We swear we see her eyes well up, although perhaps it was an illusion - our vision was, quite un-macho as it may be, admittedly rather blurry at the time anyway. Still, everyone remembered where to go 'ugh!' like a choir, and it was quite something.
'Debaser' rocks us, 'Cactus' scares us (really...), and 'Gigantic' soothes us. Even Frank Skinner's having a bit of a dance towards the back of the arena, amidst a host of other celebrities all stripped of their cool and reduced, as everyone is, to the basic, primal level of a hysterical fan. Famous admirers, cash-in reunion tours and compilations, receding hairlines and ballooning bellies aren't the usual signs of heroes. 'The Pixies Sell Out' say the official T-Shirts. 'Thank God for the Pixies', says the world.
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