More about: Pixies

Pixies have now been together for two-and-a-half times longer than the first time around. First forming in 1986, they split in 1993 before reuniting in 2004. Then, it was the comeback tour of the century, selling out in seconds. It’s been eighteen years since that huge world tour, and—as most recently evidenced by a new shot of music in the form of ‘Human Crime’—Pixies are still going strong. Really, really strong.

That doesn’t mean that they aren’t still celebrating the past. Last week, the group dropped a huge vinyl box-set that dedicates four discs to each of the set-lists the band played across four nights during the London residency of their reunion tour. “There is something about Brixton that we’re very comfortable playing,” the band’s original drummer Dave Lovering says of the beloved south London venue, “it’s like home there.” Guitarist Joey Santiago, also of the original line-up, agrees: “On tour, you have certain venues you’re looking forward to playing and that’s definitely one of them.”

Four discs for four nights at the Academy, Live In Brixton is totally unique, every night a different set-list. Now, the band “wing it” on stage, deciding from song to song what they’d like to play next. Then, there were set-lists, but each was different from the last. “If we’re gonna do four shows in a row in a city, [the set-list] can’t be the same night after night,” Santiago says of the methodology.

Though Santiago confesses the endless blur of shows played since their reunion is “a haze”, he remembers little moments of the shows that relaunched Pixies in the UK. Lovering remembers a little more: “To come back to England and see the fervour that we remember back in the ‘80s…[people] on the balcony jumping up and down and people just having a blast singing along. It was pretty crazy; I won’t forget it.”

You can hear the reception Dave remembers on the Live In Brixton boxset, an audience of fans that included Coldplay and Blur lost in the joy of seeing one of the most inventive alternative bands of all time return to the live stage. Many attended more than one night of the London run, and were rewarded with a new show each night. While night one saw them start and end with B-sides: a cover of Neil Young's 'Winterlong' and 'Into The White', night two kicked off with 'La La Love You', night three with 'Bone Machine' and night four with 'Head On'. Their reign of the Academy finished with Surfer Rosa cut 'Vamos'. As Joey Santiago tell us: "we wanted to keep every night interesting."

By the June of that year—when the group played in Brixton—Pixies had gotten back into the swing of things. The first show back, in Minneapolis, wasn't quite so straightforward. "I do remember that because everyone got blisters," Lovering said, "we hadn’t played in so long." 

Considering how many shows they've played since then, it might be safe to assume that Joey, Dave and the rest of the band have callouses. Catch them in their prime this summer on tour, and at BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in Cardiff on 1 April. 

Tickets.

JULY

 5   Castlefield Bowl, Manchester, UK
 8   British Summer Time Festival 2022, London, U.K.
 9   Mad Cool Festival 2022, Madrid, Spain
11  Bitan 1, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel
14  Festival Big Top, Galway, Ireland
15  Festival Big Top, Galway, Ireland
16  Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, Ireland
20  Botanical Garden of Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
22  Morze, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
23  Adrenaline Stadium Live, Moscow, Russian Federation
25  Art-Zavod Platforma, Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine
28  Gröna Lund, Stockholm, Sweden
30  Welstars auf dem Roncalliplatz, Cologne, Germany
31  Zelt-musik-festival, Zirkuszelt, Freiburg, Germany

Live In Brixton is out now.

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More about: Pixies