ShowListing.RttP{Pixies roll call for Day 1 sold out show: Wednesday!}

mission of burma: the guitarist/singer Roger Miller has long had an ear problem, tinnitus. he had headphones on the entire time and the drummer had a wall up between them. his amps were even out in front of him.
Bob Weston (shellac) was was absent from this show. he's nornally doing tape loops.
This year, they released 2 cds, one on regular old CD and one CD via iTunes. I had no clue about the iTunes CD so there were a lot tracks I had no chance of knowing. I listened to the CD a couple times so I recognize some of the songs that they played.
like most post-punk, they were very dancey, heavey on the bass guitar and the drums (ala their contenporaries killing joke and p.i.l.) as still that modern bands like q and not u are once again borrowing from. All 3 memebers sang, which was cool. At one point, the bass player said "the pixies brought us along to make them look young".

pixies: They started with the drummer coming out and snapping a picture of the audience. With Black Francis turned Frank Black on a steel string guitar, they began with a b-side called winterlong. the song was very flavored by Frank Blacks solo carrer. I would have sworn that that track could have been off of one of his numerous solo-cds. there was a bit of a pause and they broke into the version of Wave of Mutilation that is used in the movies Pump-up the Volume. Another pause and Kim Deal stepped forward to front the song In Heaven. As with Frank Black, this showed the effects of ms. deals decade of other bands, her formally long drawn out vocals were short and to the point (ala the breeders). After In Heaven, there was one final longer pause before they broke into over and hour of straight pixies songs. the first 3 songs seemed like they were changing CDs between songs, the rest of the show played from one song to the next, flowing like a CD.
Just about everyone in the crowd held up the 5,6,7 fingers for Monkey Gone to Heavy. No.13 baby left Joey Santiago playing a solo in a single spot like which faded out to total darkness. bright lights came back on all of them as they started the next song. An excited fan tossed a bra up on stage as the pixies started Veloria; the drummer got the bra. they played U-Mass which was like shooting fish in a barrel with this crowd. I'd say over 1/2 the crowd most likely attended one of the umass campuses around the area. I was wicked impressed with the crowd for Isla de Enchanta, watching 1000's of kids singing along in spanish is a pretty cool.
For most of the performance, Kim Deal seemed really stiff. Also, a lot of her vocals were way way way too short from the cds. and she was smoking for the whole time. Debaser had the first (middle aged) crowd surfer. Kims vocals were definitely very short and sounded more like she was asking a question "Debaser?".
In the middle of Vamos, the drummer threw a guitar stick to Joey and he put down his guitar and magically played it like a magician with a wand. Ok, really he was controlling the feedback with his foot, but it was cool to watch. in the middle he took a picture of the crowd over his guitar. When it was time for the song to come back in the end, he tossed the drum stick back to the drummer and they continued on with the end of the song.
Gigantic ended their set. kim came on a line too early in the song and said "Thanks... fuck.." laughed and then tried again at the right time "Thanks a lot for coming out!". the crowd clapped as band walked around the stage waving to the crowd. stage crew rushed to get everything set up for their encore. people started to chant for more and they picked up their instruments and played the last song.
How ever tongue in check some of their antics on stage were, their performance was awesome, selling out that big arena and adding on an extra date. This definitely shows the staying power of a band that broke up in over 10 years ago. I'm sure many people where fulfilling their childhood dreams by attending this show. myself included.