Touch ground when it thunders

The Pixies Realized

Last minute I was able to trade 2 tickets and sell 2. Best case scenario, that doesn’t happen often.

Catherine came over at 4 after her latest job interview and we took the BART over to Berkeley to see the Pixies at the Greek Theatre on beautiful UC Berkeley’s campus. We had some time before the show so we went to Blake’s and had meatball sandwiches with Tom and watched the Yankees clobber the Red Sox. Nobody was routing for the Yankees at least, and the guy at the table to our left kept yelling, “Hit a dinga!” at the TV, so that was cool. I was having a very Boston evening, Tom (M’head), Catherine (Go Newton!), watching the Sox on the way to see the Pixies (U-Mass). Catherine and I left Blake’s, Tom went to Moes to look at books, and walked through campus in search of the Greek. We only had to turn around once, I’m happy to say. The Greek is a great outdoor amphitheater, big Doric columns on stage, tiered concrete seating for 8,000 (according to the site). We found some concrete slab space about 40 rows back from the stage and watched the last two songs of the first opening band. The Thrills. I didn’t love them, and let’s be honest; you can’t rock out in a skirt. It’s like trying to look tough in a sweater set. Maybe they meant the band name to be ironical. After The Thrills stopped the roadies started roaming around on stage and the pony tailed man on the slab in front and below us who earlier had turned to us and said, “Were you smart enough to bring any weed?” said to his girlfriend “The next band’s called Fear.”
“FEAR?!” I said.
“Yeah Fear.” He said.
Then sure enough there was Lee Ving wandering around on stage wearing jackboots and jeans plugging in all his own shit. For those of you who’ve never had this conversation with me it’s my contention that FEAR’s, “The Record” is the best punk rock album of all time. It’s everything punk wanted to be and seldom was. It was smart and crass and in your face and rude and political and silly and rocking, all at once. I was introduced to FEAR in Montana by a crazy man who did back flips off the Marshal stacks at a show in Bozeman, into the pit, and insisted we listen to FEAR all the way back to Big Sky as he drank a bottle of rotgut rum and screamed out the window, scaring the elk. Lee Ving, FEAR’s front man, was reportedly very close to John Belucci and a cult figure all by himself. He’s the dead guy in “Clue, the movie” the 80’s movie based on the board game. He’s also the bad guy in “Streets of Fire.” Needless to say I was very excited about Lee Ving on the stage, right there, holy shit. I never thought I’d get to see FEAR; FEAR’s “The Record” came out in 1979, when I was 4. Nobody around me had ever heard of them. FEAR’s other albums include: “FEAR, More Beer” and “Have Another Beer With FEAR.” It was everything I could have hoped for. They opened with “I Love Living in the City” and proceeded to play, “Beef bologna”, “More Beer”, “I Don’t Want No Satisfaction, I Just Wanna Get Some Action”, and “Let’s Start a War” (which includes the prescient lyric, “Let’s have a war, we’ll sell the rights to the network.”), among others. I yelled lyrics into the Berkley evening, those around me chuckled, it was awesome.
FEAR stopped after about a half hour and the roadies put the stage together for the Pixies. Catherine went in search of coffee but came back with beer. I will say this about the Pixies; they didn’t come to play fuck-around. They didn’t say anything at all to the crowd until the show was almost over. Black Francis is fat, bald, and fantastic. Kim is the not only the cutest rock star out there, but also the most casual. She stands with her feat not even shoulder width apart, no rocker stance for her, and plays her bass, which is more than half the size of her, in a decidedly shy manner. In fact the only Pixie to say anything to us before the end of the show was Kim who occasionally would grin into her mic and say, “Thanks!” I had the feeling she really meant it, no really, it was a sincere “Thanks.” The Pixies seemed generally surprised and appreciative the whole time. Maybe I was projecting this but that’s the feeling I had. They were never a band that could sell out an 8,000-seat amphitheater 3 nights in a row before they broke up for 14 years. For those of you who’d like to recreate last night’s show in your own home here’s the play list. Note: not all of the song names are correct, but it’s the best I can do.
1. In Heaven
2. Wave of Mutilation
3. Where is My Mind
4. Winterlong
5. Here Comes Your Man
6. Is She Weird
7. Subbaculta
8. Bone Machine
9. Ride the Tide? (not sure about the song name)
10. Dead
11. Send it to me? (ditto)
12. I Bleed
13. Crackity Jones
14. Debaser
15. U-Mass
16. Come On Pilgrim
17. Caribou
18. Gouge Away
19. Broken Face
20. Something Against You?
21. Tame
22. (a song in Spanish, I don’t have this album)
23. Hey
24. Monkey Gone To Heaven
25. Mr. Grieves
26. Valoria
27. Your Proud Son
28. Holiday Song
29. Vamos
30. (insert loud clapping/yelling/whistling to catalyze encore here)
31. Wave of Mutilation (again, weird)
32. Gigantic
33. Into the Light

I also wanted to write about the strange view Catherine and I had of the crowd, or at least of their heads. And about the camera-phones and the puffs of smoke and about how the Pixies really only had one special effect, which was a smoke machine behind the amps. This effect engulfed the drummer in smoke and basically made it look as if the amps were on fire the whole show.
It’s two now, and there’s more. Check back soon and I’ll finish it up.

posted by jts @ 2:27 AM