By: David de Young
There has been higher demand for reviews of the Pixies’ first show of their re-union tour than for any show I’ve ever written about. HowWasTheShow readers had been emailing me for days asking if I’d be there, and once I was into the event people were eagerly inquiring when my review would be up before the show was even over.
Part 1 is my personal account of events leading up to the show. Part 2 is about entering the venue. And Part 3 is about the show itself.
This review was written in three parts over three days.
This review almost never happened. After 30 months of writing about live music in this town, I had as much trouble getting into this show as anyone else. Probably more. So don’t start getting jealous until you hear me out.
Even with a bit of pre-sale "secret show" knowledge, I didn't even try to buy a Pixies ticket when they went on sale. Call it hubris if you will, but I fucked myself because I didn’t think I’d need one—big mistake. Through nothing short of naiveté, I didn’t realize how huge a deal this would all turn out to be.
I am far from a Pixies fanatic. I saw Frank Black live on his UK tour in 2001, I own Doolitte, and I have always had the utmost musical respect for the Pixies and their importance as a band, but I had already graduated from college by the time they even formed so there wasn't much chance of this being any sort of high school nostalgic trip for me.
I was more concerned with getting a friend into the show who had literally cried when the Pixies had broken up and I didn't want to be responsible for more tears from failing her. Within a week my friend had acquired a ticket and I was able take a load off. That taken care of I didn’t worry much about myself, resolving—as I watched ticket prices for spares shoot to hundreds of dollars on eBay—that I’d still be able to give a fair account of what I thought would be the most common experience of this show for most people, the experience of not being able to get into it.
I went to sleep on Monday night, "Pixies Eve" happy with my plan of covering the show from outside the venue. But for whatever reason, I woke up at 4 a.m. Tuesday genuinely disturbed about the whole thing and unable to get back to sleep. Suddenly I felt like a little boy who’d practiced and practiced after school for years and then didn’t get picked for the team. By mid morning I was so full of black bile I even contemplating junking well over two years of work on HowWasTheShow and quitting the entire project. What’s the point of dedicating yourself to the goal of being the vanguard of local live music writing if you can’t even gain admittance to the show of the year?
It was time to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I called my extremely small arsenal of industry contacts to see if there was anything they could do, but with due respect for the clout and professionalism of my friends in the business, there really wasn’t. There had never been a guest list. Fine Line V.I.P. cards were not honored for this show. And the handful of available press spots had been taken long ago by “the big guys,” Spin, Rolling Stone, MTV, etc. Even the vast majority of local press who attended this show had purchased tickets with real money, so if you are one of the lucky few who got in by means of a personal favor instead of a ticket or valid media pass, my hat is off to you. There really aren’t many of you out there.
Adopting a "fake it till you make it" approach, and despite not having a ticket, I lived Tuesday as if I were going to the show. I tucked my earplugs into my pocket in the morning so they’d be there when needed. I went to the cash machine to make sure I had the cash to purchase my ticket; mentally noting I was willing to pay up to $100, but no more. And I met my ticketed friends downtown for a pre-show bite to eat at Pizza Luce. (I admit that as a backup plan, I also made sure I was on the guest list at the 400 Bar to see the Glad Version if need be, knowing that their impeccable pop would have been my number one choice of consolation prize.)
About 7:15 p.m. I got my final confirmation from the Fine Line that they were sorry, but there really was “no room at the Inn.” And it was only then that I gave up and started to accept the fact that I would not be going to this show.
It was five minutes later that a woman in our party pulled an apparently "extra" Pixies ticket from her purse. The ticket had been purchased by a co-worker who due to very unfortunate circumstances would be unable to attend the show. All the woman in our party meant to do was help her friend at least get her money back.
Suddenly through the ultimate in ticket karma—nothing scoff at!—I found myself purchasing a ticket (at face value no less.) During the transaction a guy walked past wearing a sad-looking sandwich board reading “I need 1 Pixies ticket.” Desparate times were ahead for some and behind for others.
Doors at the Fine Line were scheduled for 8 p.m. A short line had already formed in front of the venue by 6:30 when I swung by on my Vespa (still ticketless) to check out the scene. I gathered that the excitement level was probably higher for those in line than it appeared from the street. Arriving this early wasn't really necessary unless you intended to stake out a spot close to the stage, but this spot right in front of the venue probably the best place to try your luck at legitimately finding a ticket if you didn’t yet have one.
Fans were also gathering at the nearby Pizza Luce. While downing a couple of beers with there with friends we were approached a few times by people asking if we had any extra tickets. It was in the Luce bathroom that I first ran into the guy with the handmade sandwich board of black marker on brown cardboard sign reading simply “I need 1 Pixies ticket.” I don’t know if that guy ever found a ticket, so if he reads this it’s probably no consolation to him to know that Pizza Luce wasn’t actually such a bad place to find one after all.
Knowing the queue at the Fine Line would inevitably grow, and not wanting to miss opening band The Capitol Years, we headed over about 7:45 planning to cut through the parking lot behind the club. By that time, however, that’s where the end of the line was. Now several hundred feet long, stretching from the front door of the club, wrapping through the alley and into the back lot, the line was moving slowly, but moving. At least a dozen more people walked by looking for tickets, including sandwich sign man. It was time for last ditch efforts, and probably not very successful ones by this point. A few obvious scalpers were lingering over by Sawatadee—willingness to both buy or sell tickets is usually the dead giveaway. But the people trying to buy tickets from the line were likely fans, not scalpers. Most people are aware of some of the dangers of scalping, but another danger is Minnesota Statute 609.805 which probihits the resale of certain event tickets for greater than face value. Which brings me back to the to the eBay tickets that were on sale for this show. eBay has typically shutdown such auctions in states which prohibit them. In general, it’s a good idea to either get tickets from legitimate sources or from friends.
As the line moved through the alley, to our left was the DiscLive truck with its cables running out the side fire door of the Fine Line and across the alley underneath our feet covered by a bright yellow cover that even advertised their name. From there the cables ran into the magic truck that sucks in live music and pumps out box after box of packaged, finished CDs within minutes of the end of a concert. I had already been to the Disclive website only to find out the 500 CD’s which could be pre-ordered online had sold out well before Tuesday’s show. It doesn’t take a whiz at math to figure out that this show stands to make more money from sale of these $25 two disk sets than it did at the door. The idea is brilliant, of course, and offers the chance for bands to literally double their take from shows even before t-shirt sales, as well as allowing fans one of the best take home souvenirs you can come by, your own professional-made and legal "bootleg" of the show.
The line into the Fine Line was as well-behaved as any I’ve ever seen at an American concert. Often tidy, organized queues such as this are reserved for the British, who even when drunk have an uncanny ability to queue in an organized manner as if it’s programmed into their genetic makeup. Camaraderie in line was also high as people spotted there friends and were genuinely glad to see that they’d made the cut.
The press check-in point was also located in the alley, not that it was of any use to us. As we passed the press desk a somewhat hurried out of town female reporter arrived to show ID, pick up her green press sticker and hurry off to where we would run into her again a short time later.
The line split into 3 parts and speeded up rapidly as 3 members of the Fine Line staff checked ID’s and affixed Lite Beer bracelets to our left arms to show we were of age. I can only imagine how much slower this line would have been if the Fine Line had kept with their norm of one person checking ID’s at the door, but we probably would have missed the entire opening set and much of the Pixies as well. As things were, anyone who arrived reasonably on time missed nothing as the opening band didn’t start until about 8:20.
The Fine Line staff did an excellent job handling the show entry. Ticketmaster ticket barcodes were quickly scanned. Non-disposable camera’s were confiscated and checked. (Though some might have been surprised by this, the Fine Line website had clearly stated the no-camera rule for days before the show.)
Pixies fans appear to be a generally good-natured and patient bunch, but still, a screwed up entry process would have caused unnecessary pre-show chaos.
I didn't serialize this review into three parts to create dramatic tension. I did, however, receive comments and email during the writing process suggesting that this review was becoming like a saga people couldn't wait to hear the rest of. But I'm not clever enough to have done that on purpose; the three segments are the result of time constraints which prohibited me from getting it all done at once. Like the vast majority of music fans, I "afford my rock and roll lifestyle" by working for a living. Journalism is merely an extremely time-consuming (and fun) hobby.
Despite the Pixies sell-out, I had no worries about what it would be like inside the venue once we'd passed through the doors. I've been to plenty of sold out shows at the Fine Line and this one seemed only slightly more crowded. Capacity is capacity is capacity whether the band onstage is Boogie Wonderland, Badly Drawn Boy or the Pixies. Granted, at Tuesday's show people were making a more concerted effort to get as close as possible to the band, creating more congestion than normal to the right of the stage near the door to the basement green room. For this show the Fine Line had erected a barrier, creating a moat for press photographers, including Michaelangelo Matos who was on hand covering the show for Rolling Stone (http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6937).
If, heaven forbid, you needed to pee at the Pixies show, nearly impassable crowds along the side of the main bar (definitely impassable for shy, un-pushy folk like myself) nearly mandated a trip up the front stairs, around, and down the back stairs.
In the balcony there was more room to move around than you might have guessed, so that's where we headed immediately to avoid feeling claustrophobic. The mezzanine tables directly facing the stage were all reserved for press, but just behind them we were able to find a place to stand where my HowWasTheShow companion could see well, and I could see—well sort of see anyway. The hurried reporter we had seen in the alley earlier hustled by us to take her seat, making me feel like a second class citizen momentarily for not having a press badge. Evidently we had trespassed on sacred press territory.
Because of our proximity and lack of credentials, a Fine Line staffer asked us if we were press—evidently we were a little close to the edge. At first I answered no, but then changed my mind, telling my companion that if anyone else asked if we were journalists, the answer is yes. "We're with howwastheshow.com and you are my photographer." The beauty of this decision was, of course, that press badges or no press badges both parts were true. And it wasn't long before we'd struck up conversations with journalists from Newsweek and MTV, two of several media organizations on hand to write about the show. One such journalist was MTV's Joseph Patel whose report on the show can be read here: (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1486354/20040414/story.jhtml).
Opening band The Capitol Years—though many people claimed to never have heard of them and others dismissed them as openers without even mentioning their name—have generated a lot of buzz and in my opinion deserved a slot on this well-publicized bill. Though reminding me a little of Jet at times, they lived up to their hype, demonstrating their sense of humor at one point with an in between song bit of banter where they all talked simultaneously and unintelligibly. At one point they also feigned naiveté saying that we seemed like "a pretty good crowd for a Tuesday," despite the fact that this club was one of the most coveted places to be in all of North America on this particular night. There's no question that the Capitol Years were worth coming early for. And any band that thinks Pink (the singer, not the color) is evil is okay in my book.
By the time of writing, journalists worldwide have already elaborated on the set list so many times I'll try to spare you of too much of that and let you simply read the whole set list for yourself here.
And finally, after much in the way of introduction, my observations of the show itself follow.
A cloud of dry ice smoke signaled the start of the show as the strains of "Bone Machine" rang out. As the first song ended fans provided about the most extreme example of over-cheering I've ever heard. Clearly, the crowd was rabid with adoration—understandable, of course, considering it had been a dozen years since even the most adoring fans would have heard the full Pixies play that or any song live.
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The Pixies play the Fine Line - photo by Matt Schmidt of mplshappyhour.com (click for full size version)
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By the third song, people in the balcony were attempting to reposition themselves to see better. Mplshappyhour.com had a good idea, but were immediately signaled to get down off their chairs by the Fine Line staff. The entertainment website's other violation of policy, however, provides us with our exclusive digital photo.
From where we were seated, drummer David Lovering had a bit of a Neil Youngish look to him his leather hat.
At least one reviewer (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/8426005.htm?1c) complained that the bands warm-up performance overall was merely "warm" and that bassist Kim Deal was "losing time often." I myself, on the other hand, found the band remarkably tight, especially after just 3 days of rehearsals.
Deal's own sister Kelley and the siblings' parents were on hand for the show, as were two of guitarist Joey Santiago's brothers. Though I didn't recognize them, I gather from Kelley's own somewhat insider review of the show on Frank Black's website forum (http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6949) that they must not have been too far away from us.
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" had even some of the journalists singing along upstairs. Always a good sign.
One of the many things I don't understand about rock shows is why on earth people call their friends and hold their cell phones up to the music. Aren't their friends already jealous enough about not being there that they need to be baited with a tinny reproduction of a show they couldn't get into?
"Winterlong" showed some of the sweet harmonies we'd hear from Frank and Kim throughout the set. Frank introduced "La La Love You" as being "one from Doolittle," which seemed to be the first song some fans recognized even if they'd already played "Wave of Mutilation" and "Monkey.." and would play 6 of the 1989 album's 15 songs before show's end. The crowd went even crazier for "Here Comes Your Man."
During "Vamos," the 14th song of what would turn out to be a 26 or 27 song set including encores (depending on whom you ask) a band rep arrived with the set list. My photographer and I actually helped the band rep identify and pass the set lists out to the rest of the press folks around us. Suddenly, we were not only press, but the focal point for the upstairs contingent thereof. (Good God, but I'd come a long way since being ticket-less at 7:30 p.m.)
The six song encore was a mini show in itself, featuring a raucous "Something Against You" followed by Kim Deal singing "In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song)"—a.k.a. the theme from Eraserhead—which segued right into a slow reprise of "Wave of Mutilation." Then came "Where is my Mind?" my favorite Pixies song, and the band wrapped it up with "Into the White."
The DiscLive CD we'd paid $25 for before the show was ready almost immediately as promised, but the line to pick them up was long so it was nearly 40 minutes until we got ours. By the time of writing I've already seen a few of these disks on sale on eBay for over $100, so obviously the hype about this show continues days after it ended. But with at least 1000 of these limited edition CD's already in the hands of the public, I can't imagine them being worth more than, well $25, despite their uniqueness. Mine, for example, is #253 of 1000, but it's not like I feel I'm the member of some special club because of it. It is, however, a very listenable mix, and a burned copy of it (and I'm sure fans will be making many) should be a great consolation prize for anyone not at the show.
So there you have it, my own personal slice of Pixies-mania. Tickets for the Pixies' Minneapolis return on November 11th went on sale this morning (4/17) and not wanting to go through another Pixies' ticket hell, I snapped mine up right away after about a 4 minute wait in the Ticketmaster "virtual line." As of 9 p.m. Saturday tickets are still available, but I'm sure the Roy Wilkins auditorium show will also sellout in the next few days or weeks, though clearly no where near as fast as the in just 4 minutes like the 700 Fine Line tickets did.
Was this the show of a lifetime? Far from it. Was it one of the best rock and roll experiences I've ever had? No, to that one too. But was it a great learning experience, a wonderful example of fan camaraderie, and a terrific re-introduction to one of the most influential rock bands of the past 20 years? You bet it was.
See also Jim Froelich's review of this show.
Location Info:
Fine Line Music Café
Artist Info: Pixies
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