Gig: Pixies

The Pixies (Imaginary Cities)

Massey Hall. Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

It'd been a couple years since I was down for a gig on Shuter Street, and even this trip was somewhat happenstance. T., with whom I'd gone to many a show back in the day, had an extra ticket and invited me out — so despite some nostalgia-related misgivings, I joined him up in the balcony for the second of a two-night stand of a band playing an album from 1989 front-to-back.¹

They say that playing Massey Hall is some sort of meaningful measuring stick that a band has, y'know, made it. But really, it just means you can convince a certain numer of people to pay for a semi-pricey ticket — it's not like "Classic Albums Live" have reached some equivalent point of artistic validation to The Quintet or anything. And it's even more capricious for opening acts. I dunno what went down in what backroom, but it seemed like a helluva break for Winnipeg's Imaginary Cities to be on this bill. Purveyors of a mildly fungible soul-laced pop-rock, they might have been seen as lacking in stature to be "Massey-worthy".

Given that I had seen 'em just about a month before this, I was not too sad when we walked in with the band already on stage. We still managed to catch the last twenty minutes of the set — enough to reinforce my dominant impression that they're "a pleasant diversion to pass the time while you wait for another band". Besides some of their own stuff (like the admittedly-catchy "temporary Resident"), they threw in a cover of Cake's "Mexico" — which was effective in playing Rusty Matyas' vox off Marti Sarbit's, but kinda implied a bit of a lack of faith in their own repertoire. And, anyway, their own "Nine and Ten" was just as successful in that regard. The band seemed a little unused to being spread out on such a big stage, but they had fun with it, bantering with the crowd and even inviting everyone down to the merch table to check out Matyas' own brand of ketchup.

Perhaps, in the end, this was a canny choice for an opener as this might be the sort of pleasantly non-threatening stuff that might appeal to a nostalgia-seeking crowd who probably don't work as hard at finding new music as they used to.

Now into a cash-in reunion phase that has lasted nearly as long as the band's original tenure, the Pixies were taking another kick at the horse by presenting a end-to-end revisitation of the seminal (and wonderful) Doolittle. And that obviously paid off, with the band playing Massey Hall two nights in a row — a good showing even if there were plenty of open seats up in the balcony on this night.

On the darkened stage, a giant screen blinked into life, showing a Chien Andalou highlight reel. The screen would go from opaque to backlit as needed, adding visual accompaniment to the songs, as well as title-cards announcing each phase of the show. There were also giant colour-changing orbs suspended above the stage, and I considered how awesome it would be if they lowered to the stage after the opening act and the band emerged from them, Spinal Tap style.

That was not to be, but there was a mix of the high-tech and ceremonial (I'm so not used to shows with, like, a lead-up and screens and so on) with the band's more down-to-earth approach that was generally agreeable. The four members seemed about as spread apart from each other as they could be, and guitarist/vocalist Frank Black, er, Black Francis seemed unconcerned with interacting with the crowd. That task would fall to bassist/designated banterer Kim Deal, whose chipper demeanour bobbed happily along just like one of her basslines.

She'd also occasionally shout out a progress report on how far through the album the band was, but before getting there the set started off with some b-sides, "Dancing the Manta Ray" (which is mostly notable for being a different song than "Manta Ray", surveyed a few songs later) and "Weird at my School" (not really notable at all). "Bailey's Walk" and "Manta Ray" are, indeed, stronger songs and expressed more of the Doolittle vibe.

And then into the album proper, which should be an anti-climactic experience (no surprise what's coming next!), but it was still exciting when the bassline for "Debaser" kicked in. Otherwise, though there's no doubt that I loved Doolittle back in the day, it'd probably been well more than a decade since I listened to it, so I was actually was a little surprised as the hits, as they say, kept on coming.

There was definitely a bit of live acceleration on songs like "Tame", which made the quick tunes rush by even faster — many were here and gone in a couple minutes flat. The audience was pretty ebullient as the band tackled "Here Comes Your Man", but, perhaps perversely, I think I enjoyed the stuff from Side 2 more, just to see the band tackling non-natural setlist selections like "Mr. Grieves" and "Silver". "No. 13 Baby" — somewhat surprisingly the longest cut on the album, go ahead and look it up — actually was allowed to simmer along a bit in an extended outro, but otherwise the arrangements hewed pretty closely to the originals.

And then, after "Gouge Away", the band departed the stage — and another thing I'm not used to any more is the large-format gig's extended encore breaks, with the band waiting for a few minutes and letting the audience whip themselves up a good bit before returning. Returning to the album's b-sides, they played "Wave of Mutilation" once again, here in its slowed-down "UK Surf" incarnation, and added "Into the White" before retreating again.

After that came a five-song encore that leaned on the early part of their catalogue, with a pair from 1987's Come On Pilgrim ("Caribou" and "Nimrod's Song") and the rest from '88's Surfer Rosa, leaving the last couple albums unvisited.² And if "Vamos" wasn't particularly the one I'd've hoped they'd pull out of their hat, closing with "Where Is My Mind?" (the audience singing along for the chorus) and "Gigantic" was a rather satisfying finish. The latter even included the band getting a little playful, doing a drop-out to only Deal's bass playing as she laughed and told the audience, "it took us twenty-two years but we finally learned how to break it down!", before ending the song by saying "Good night" to each of the bandmembers.

Ultimately, although it was a pleasant-enough experience and a good gig I was feeling hard-pressed to be as excited as the people around me losing their shit to this, and I wondered, "am I a callous blowhard, or are these people clinging to their past too much?"

I mean, it could be both.

I'd originally posted a recording from one of the encore's non-Doolittle songs here, and now I've added a couple from the album itself here.

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¹ Plus, I should add, I had already seen the Pixies, back in 2004 when there was a sense of exciting novelty about their reunion — and back in a time when I'd head out to a giant shed on the other side of Pearson Airport to go see a band. If nothing else, Massey Hall was a monumental step up in terms of comfort, sonics and convenience.

² That Bossanova anniversary tour is gonna be a harder sell, I reckon, and by Trompe le Monde the band might be down to playing state fairs and Elks conventions.