The huge affection for the band is evident as they take to the stage to huge cheers. They open with a selection of b-sides from the Doolittle era, and it’s no exaggeration to say that these tunes are good enough to go on most bands’ albums. It’s then time for the group to launch into Doolittle itself, which of course commences with indie dancefloor staple ‘Debaser’. Predictably, the place goes apeshit, and it’s a testament to Frank Black’s estimable gifts as a songwriter that we’re all happily singing along to a tune about Bunuel’s surrealist classic Un Chien Andalou.
Another virtue of The Pixies is the sheer economy of their material – they skip through the record in roughly 35 minutes. There isn’t a duff moment throughout, and the highlights keep coming: the primal scream of ‘Tame’ (a number which Frank says he always found “particularly cathartic to sing”); the pristine pop of ‘Here Comes Your Man’; the elegaic ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ (“the song that convinced Kim Deal to join The Pixies”); and the exquisite ‘Hey’, as gorgeous a song as one could ever hope to set ears on.
Hearing them run through the whole album, you really do get a sense of just how extraordinarily influential The Pixies were – there’s the bit the Smashing Pumpkins really liked, and Nirvana obviously loved that part, and Radiohead were clearly very impressed by that section, and so on. After an encore consisting of a couple of more b-sides (including a slowed down, more brooding take on ‘Wave Of Mutilation’), they call it a night. A few more classics from the canon would have rounded off the evening nicely, but as Mick Jagger once sagely observed, you can’t always get what you want.
Overall, this was an evening to savour, so here’s to Frank, Joey, Kim and Dave.