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June 13, 2005
Jugar Por La Playa
Disco Rodeo is a slightly more abysmal place to see a rock show than even The Ritz was. But when the Pixies finally played "Vamos" towards the end of their set tonight, I looked at the Tecate can in my hand and the "Bienvenidos" sign on the balcony ledge and had to smile at the fact that I was hearing all of that Spanglish in a space that normally functions as a cavernous Latino dance club.
Other random setlist-inspired observations:
- When they opened up with "Bone Machine" and "Cactus", I thought that the Pixies might actually be doing their whole alphabetical-set-list trick once again for old time's sake. But then they skipped way ahead to "U-Mass" and "Wave of Mutilation" and boxed themselves into a "WXYZ" corner. Oh well.
- Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde were disappointing albums when they came out, and the material from those albums sounds even weaker today when played next to all of those great late 80s songs. "Stormy Weather", are you kidding me?
- The Pixies refused to play "Here Comes Your Man" on the Doolittle tour, but tonight the song got thrown into the set with all of those other hits. A minor crowd-pleasing concession, and yet seemingly indicative of something.
- If you've already played most of your two best albums and only want to play one more song for an encore, you might as well get goofy and play "La La Love You". Give the drummer some!
During the year that my friend Dave and I rode around in his station wagon listening to Surfer Rosa over and over, I'm pretty sure we would have totally mocked the idea of old fogeys paying big bucks to see has-been rock bands play WRDU-sponsored shows at Carter Finley Stadium. Of course, I now realize that by going to see Slint, Pixies, and Dinosaur reunion tours in 2005, I am becoming my generation's underground rock equivalent of that late 80s Stones/Who concert attendee. But I don't really care, tonight was a fun time and a good trip down memory lane.
Even so, death to the Pixies. I'm not going again in 2021...
Posted by Tim at June 13, 2005 12:32 AM
Comments
...I'm pretty sure we would have totally mocked the idea of old fogeys paying big bucks to see has-been rock bands play....
Heh heh, yeah. This seems to be the year it all starts (even though I am a coupla years younger than you.) I'm going to go see Teenage Fanclub, who I was in love with in 1992, although they are still releasing music, so I guess it's not a reunion tour.
Posted by: robin at June 15, 2005 01:10 PM
Trompe Le Monde is, I feel, a pretty awesome album. You're right about B'nova, though...if you're going to play something off that album, why not "Rock Music"? Of course, considering the overall ramshackle quality of the Disco Rodeo set they played, they probably couldn't couldn't have gotten through that slide-y part between the second and third bars.
Posted by: Andy at June 23, 2005 02:56 AM