Pixies/No Age, November 4 at the Palladium

The Pixies performing Doolittle, my all-time favorite album (by a country mile)? Yeah, I'll be go to that. Hell, I'll get tickets for both nights (later a third added but I passed on it). The first night I was solo, getting there in time to see No Age, who changed my mind. I had tried to get into them earlier in the year and I just couldn't get my head around the noise. For whatever reason that night it clicked with me, or maybe it was just that they seemed more focused, in a place where I could enjoy them, or they were on their best behavior opening for their heroes. The Palladium's floor is a wide-open space, half-full by the time I got there, and I was able to move up most of the way by the time the Pixies went on, getting within a few feet of the front barrier when they hit the stage and the crowd crushed their way in. I was surprised by the people around me, mostly kids, which isn't a surprise to be in the thick of the crowd for a rock show, but the Pixies were big (the first time) before most of them were born. And those kids were as crazy about the band as anyone else in the crowd (except for the guy older than me who asked if whatever they just played was on Doolittle. Well, duh, dude, that's what they're playing. Then he said he didn't really listen to that album and I realized that I did not need to pay attention to him). The show started with a film, apparently the one by Fellini that Black Francis took inspiration from, with close-up eyeballs being sliced, which got the crowd going, but it went on for about 15 minutes and I just didn't see the point, even as an introduction. The band took the stage and they confounded the crowded by not diving into Doolittle but by playing some Doolittle-era b-sides. The crowd was patient but even I'll say that those non-Doolittle tracks from that time were not their best. A smart move? I can't tell. That immediately-post-Doolittle era might be when you could say that that was when they started their downhill climb (one that Frank Black has yet to recover from). But the crowd was grateful, though they almost exploded when Kim started the baseline to "Debaser" before stopping when she realized that they had planned to play another song or two before that. Kim was particularly loose that night, as was the rest of the band, but better to tighten later than start tight and have nowhere to go after that, I suppose. Once Kim starting playing the right song at the right time, "DOOLITTLE" appeared larger than life on the screen and the crowd, as they say, went wild. Kids half my age were crawling over each other and pushing to the front, a few mosh pits broke out, and everyone was dripping sweat -- an appropriate show of appreciation. True to their word they played the whole album, then a few more B-sides, then left the stage. They played it as well as it could be, not adding any flourishes but not having a keyboardist either (like they did when they originally toured the album). To be honest, I couldn't see the point in making a big deal that they were playing the whole album, since they played most of it every night when they were touring after reuniting. The one exception was "Silver, which they've never played (but which I could skip, if I had to pick any track), and filling in a few of the tracks that I missed at the other shows I had been to (somehow I'd never heard "La La Love You" live up to that point). The encore was a few songs from the other album, which was fine but too short for my tastes. Doolittle is something like 36 minutes long. Yes, filling up a set-list with B-sides is appropriate, as is playing a few other tracks for anyone who wasn't as obsessed with the album as I am (though I wouldn't understand how someone could be like that). As far as I was concerned, playing Doolittle was just a starting point and they couldn't have gone anywhere from there, though they didn't try to go far, which was fine with everyone and I certainly won't complain.

The Pixies' set-list:
"Dancing the Manta Ray"
"Weird at My School"
"Bailey's Walk"
"Manta Ray"
"Debaser"
"Tame"
"Wave of Mutilation"
"I Bleed"
"Here Comes Your Man"
"Dead"
"Monkey Gone to Heaven"
"Mr. Grieves"
"Crackity Jones"
"La La Love You"
"No. 13 Baby"
"There Goes My Gun"
"Hey"
"Silver"
"Gouge Away"

"Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)"
"Into the White"

"Isla de Encanta"
"Gigantic"
"Where Is My Mind?"