World of Sheds

The Wait is over! The Crap Pixies Movie is Here!

18 Oct 2009 3 Comments

by Doctor Angel in music Tags: Black Francis, Campanile, David Lovering, Doolittle, Glasgow, Joey Santiago, Kim Deal, music, pixies, SECC

I know, mes petits champignons, the wait has been agonising.  It’s only been finished today due to a gargantuan hangover, of biblical pestilence proportions. 

As some of you may know, my love of the band The Pixies, runs pretty deep, like the river of slime in Ghostbusters 2 (A classic), so I pursued my girlish dream by trekking up to Glasgow to see them. 

I boarded the Glasgow bound train at exotic Wigan where my excitement and anticipation built.  I listened to them on my i-pod pretty much all the way there.  I won’t bore you with the journey details, or how basic the Campanile hotel is for fricking 90 odd quid a night (it’s like an Ibis!) and fast forward to the show.

I was  staying opposite the SECC in Glasgow, but the walk there was an agony of ecstasy (yes really).  Round that way in Glasgow is pretty amazing.  It’s like a raw, brutal version of the Quayside in Newcastle.  It’s a stark, industrial scene punctuated with the beautiful Armadillo and ‘squinty bridge’. A domineering black crane, a reminder of the shipping industry in Glasgow (if you’ve ever been to the shipyard of Govan, it’s quite spectacular).  But I didn’t care about this, other than it was on the way, so I don’t know why I’m telling you this.

On entering the SECC, I made a beeline to the tour merchandise.  I pretty much threw my money at a poor woman on the stall there

“Give me a t-shirt with  a monkey on it”

I demanded.  She complied, largely because I appeared mad. 

“Oh my god. BADGES. Give me those BADGES!!!”

Again, the scared stall assistant obeyed.  I admit, if she hadn’t, I would have laid waste to her.

So I had my badges and t-shirt and was beaming at everyone.  I noted that some people I was surprised that they were Pixies  fans.  They were pretty muscled beef cakes, in tight lycra and sportswear. I happened upon one woman who had the biggest blond hair and fake tits encased in nowt but a waistcoat that gave the most alarming cleavage.  This is a pixies fan?  Surely not? 

She wasn’t.  There was also a weight lifting, steroid shake-a-thon thang going on in another room in the SECC.

It was an amazing show, despite nearly losing my life by being on the periphery of the dangerous ‘mosh pit’.  I was forced to move to the back due to the level of moshing, and also the godawful smell of greasy hair been thrown too near my nose that it sent my olfactory receptors into ‘spasm’.  The likes that I have not known until day 3 at the Wickerman festival (please people, take some baby wipes with you to festivals, and a squirt of ‘Batiste’ wouldn’t go amiss).  Given that I am only a tiny 5 foot 2 it was hard to see the show for my diminutive proportions, but I did ‘jump jump’( in the words of pretend Irishmen House of Pain) in order to capture a glimpse of my heroes.  Kim, Black Francis, My pal Joe and David did not disappoint.  The show took my breath away, and this was the first time I’d seen the pixies avec visuals.  They opened the show with the Dali film ‘un chien andalou’, naturally, as this was the Doolittle tour. The pixies were quite silent, much like last time I saw them, in terms of banter with the crowd.  Kim talked to us, but the others did not utter a word.  This made me wonder whether they weren’t enjoying it, if that makes sense? 

Above the stage where four great Ikea paper lanterns, that were connected and moved about.  I’m pretty sure that these were to symbolise the members of ‘take that’ after Robbie’Rude Box’ Williams  left, or maybe even to symbolise Jordan’s children.  I hope you can make them out on my terrible video.

Music wise, and atmosphere wise, it was just phenomenal.  The band started with B sides: Dance the  Mantaray, Wierd at My School, Bailey’s walk and Mantaray before starting the Dootlittle album in its entireity. The visuals were captivating. Using old movie clips, animated dot-matrix style hearts for ‘la la love you’ as well as goofy footage of band members that played behind each one of them during ‘here comes your man’ (if my recollection is correct) which I really liked and connected the band with the crowd.

A particular high point for me was ‘Hey’. I really love this song, it’s so beautiful.  Behind the band, the screen went black and big white lyrics flashed up, which  took my breath away, with the vocal solo, and the bass falling in. You can make this out on the video.

After the whole of Doolittle album had been played we had 3 encores!  The band played some more B sides such as Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) and  Into the White before going on to play some of my favourite tracks from Surfer Rosa, such as Broken Face, Holiday Song, Nimrod’s Son and Vamos and of course, Where is my Mind? 

After the gig, everyone piled out and I hung around the stage, as I could see the crew throwing things into the audience.  It looked like coins, but I’m sure the crew wouldn’t do that, so I can only presume they were plectrums or something.  As I edged nearer, like a scavenger, the crew started handing out the set lists.  There was one left.  I thought I might have to murder someone.  Luckily, the other die hard fans were sweaty men, and the crew were sweaty men, and being the only thing vaguely resembling a woman, the gods smiled upon me and I got the last set list.  I was in pixie heaven. 

Here is my crap video of the gig.

http://s843.photobucket.com/albums/zz351/worldofsheds/?action=view&current=pixies2009glasgow.flv