I may recently have been less than complimentary about the latest Pixies album Beneath the Eyrie. I mean, it isn’t a bad album, it just kind of washed over me on the first few listens, it was undoubtedly Pixies, but just didn’t move me.
Sunday night, 22nd September, Glasgow O2 Academy was an altogether different beast. If you were there and you didn’t feel moved, you are possibly Ed from the opening track of the band’s epic set.
Epic
The set time was listed from 9pm until 10.45pm with a curfew of 11pm. Black Francis and Co pushed the timing to its outer limits, ending their set almost bang on 11pm and I don’t mean, leaving the stage and returning for encores. That was the end of a life-affirming gig. A solid two hours. And what a set. I gave up counting how many songs they played running out of fingers within half an hour, I may be lucky if my gig buddy and I’s fingers and toes were enough to count the set (a quick check of Setlist.com at time of writing reveals a vastly edited list that is missing several dozen of the songs they played – perhaps whoever uploaded it went to the toilet a few times missing several songs…the setlists of previous nights’ revealing 39 song sets sounds more like it)
Hey!
This was no gig where the band played a few songs then chatted to the audience, spent ages between songs fiddling with tuning or changing guitars. Even when Francis was changing guitar, the rest of the band were cracking straight on into the next song. No messing about tonight. Minimal audience interaction, but when you have a back catalogue this strong, you let the music do the talking. A man of few words, one of the biggest interactions was at the start of Hey, singing the first line, then following it with “I said, Hey” and getting a massive response.
Enigmatic
The enigmatic frontman kicked off the gig on acoustic guitar, but don’t let that fool you into thinking we’re getting a laidback show. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the moment the opening bars of Ed is Dead kicked in, it was non-stop – no opportunity to draw breath here, as time after time your breath was taken away in sheer amazement at the power and energy of a band that aren’t in the first flush of youth. Their stamina and resolve was a sight to behold.
The band followed up the opener with a bombastic Nimrod’s Son, you will know the line that was sung back in exuberant unison. Two songs in and they had us eating out of the palm of their hands.
Incendiary
If you thought the set was powerful at that stage, when Francis swapped his acoustic for an electric, it was like lighting the blue touch paper, the effect was an incendiary explosion of glorious noise. A word here for the magnificent light show, whoever put it together was spot on the money. At the peak of the white noise, we were dazzled by piercing white light.
I say there was no opportunity to draw breath, but that isn’t to say the whole set was foot to the floor, screaming guitar and primal vocal (though Tame was pretty smoking) some of the highlights were the quieter moments. A tender Havalina from Bossanova and, having already been treated to the full electric version earlier in the set, the laidback UK Surf version of Wave of Mutilation was a joy.
I couldn’t possibly select highlights from this gig, it was one long highlight from start to finish Caribou, Gouge Away, Where is My Mind?, Here Comes Your Man. I could go on. And on. And on. Mr Grieves was late on in the set, but full credit to the band, their sheer vim and vigour igniting the mosh pit once again. The band had me eating my words during the set as new songs like Catfish Kate & On Graveyard Hill slipped seamlessly into the set.
At the end, the band rightfully took their applause, gathering as a tight gang at the front of the stage, Dave Lovering looking particularly overwhelmed. The gratitude of the gathered throng was palpable, the adoration being repaid as the band took their instruments for a final time treating us to their searing classic Debaser, the crowd exploding in a scene of untamed joy with bouncing in evidence as far back as the mixing desk.
A Revelation
I’ve seen some pretty special Pixies moments in my time, from returning to the stage in Barrowland after the lights had come on, and people had started leaving, to play a dramatic Wave of Mutilation. To an SECC gig many years after their fateful gig when the stage collapsed a couple of songs into their set, on their return to the same venue, the band returned to the stage after their first set, to play another full set for the “mums and dads up the back” who had been at the original gig and were deprived of their Pixies fix.
Tonight though, was something special, it wasn’t just a one-off moment or a few songs, it was an experience of biblical proportions, a revelation from the first note to the last. Don’t let me or anyone else ever tell you again that the Pixies are past their prime, on the evidence of tonight there is more than enough life in the old beast yet.
Death to the Pixies? Long live the Pixies!