This should be titled with a clever Pixies reference...but nah.
Awesome. I came home tonight and flipped to PBS and those Pixies were playing on Austin City Limits! Now, I was totally surprised to see this because for the past ten-twenty-however-many years, Austin City Limits broadcasts have been synonymous with guitar dudes like Stevie Ray Vaughan and jam bands like Phish. I just looked at the website though and, apparently, over the past few months they've broadcasted performances by Modest Mouse, Guided By Voices, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The Shins, Spoon and a bunch of others. I had no idea! Shit. I hope they re-run all these shows. Anyway, so I missed all recent opportunities to see The Pixies in person and didn't really know what to expect from these reunion sets. Dude!...it was the most casual, straight forward, run-of-the-mill performance I've ever seen! I don't know what they were like back in the day, but wow. I was completely blown away by how not blown away I was. It think it almost benefits one not to have a visual image of their performance. Not that they PLAYED badly, necessarily. The songs all sounded good, just like the records. But visually I was thrown off because the real high-energy, punk-rock-tinged songs give you the impression that the band playing 'em would be totally kicking ass and ROCKING OUT...and Frank Black is, like, screaming and yelping and everything. However, I witnessed nothing resembling even slight physical rocking. The word 'statues' comes to mind. I don't feel so bad anymore...relieving that it's not a requirement. I guess The Pixies have always been kind of notorious for being "ordinary" or unlikely/accidental rock stars. But still. Oh, and no one can deny how amusing it is that these four people don't look like they should be in the same band at all (from a completely superficial perspective, of course) and that that "team of misfits" element, in turn, ironically unifies them. Man, it's one thing to see them in pictures, but another to see them clash in action. It's funny how I've always had a sort of confused opinion of The Pixies and now it's become even more confused! I am mostly intrigued by the lore or whatever you want to call it that surrounds them...and, of course, the subtle surf rock influence...but I tend to be pretty divided on their material (gasp, I know). Half of their songs I think are so good...like, sooo good...best shit ever...and the other half I just don't really 'get' or they borderline annoy me. It's weird. I think I factor that in as part of the enigma though. It's fun to analyze their charm because of how elusive and contradicting it can be. It's very unintentional too. That's why they are one of the great bands.