Photo: WENN
If you're wondering where your dad was last night, he was watching The Pixies with the rest of them. If you're wondering why he's totally glazed over, catatonically smiling and dribbling over his battered vinyl copy of Surfer Rosa, it's because it was bloody brilliant.
Young and old (but mainly old) were united in celebrating one of the last truly epoch-shaping act to still be touring the Earth. It's rare for an iTunes Festival crowd to respond so vigorously, but the front few moshing rows of the Roundhouse are immediately taken aback to the heyday of grunge as soon as the alt-rock icons take to the stage, but it wasn't like that all evening.
Support act No Ceremony prove to be an arresting and captivating stage presence. Standing before dazzling visuals, frontwoman Victoria Hamblett jerks between synth and keyboards are stares piercingly out into the Roundhouse, flanked by her monochrome bandmates. With the mesmeric dreamscapes of Chromatics driven by the pulsing dark rhythms of New Order and elevated by warm electonica and fuzzy guitars, they seem the perfect band to encapsulate all that a Pixies fan would love about music.
Those in the circle stand captivated by their rich tapestry of sounds, while the vast swathes of the more casual free-entry competition winners seem too busy chatting to really appreciate what's happening on stage. Their loss. Either way, they return to London's Electrowerkz on Wednesday 9 October. If you know what's good for you, you'll be there too.
But the second the iTunes Festival countdown kicks off and Black Francis and co walk out to those historic skittering drums that open 'Wave Of Mutilation', Pixies hold the Roundhouse enthralled in a 28-song history lesson about a time when indie music really mattered.
Regardless of age, they still sound as manic as ever. With that unnvervingly innocent pop simplicity of The Beatles met the warped nonsense of Talking Heads and the explosive quiet-LOUD dynamic that would go on to inspire the likes of Nirvana and countless imitators, Pixies are as unpredictable as they were in the 1980s. They played 'Where Is My Mind' fourth in the set for Christ's sake. FOURTH! Then went straight into a volatile of 'Here Comes Your Man' Can you imagine the unmeasurable outburst of glee? It was ace. The same mad-bastard approach is taken to new tracks 'Indie Cindy' and 'Bagboy' which sound just as victoriously volatile as 'Velouria', 'Cactus' and 'Bone Machine'.
But, just like The Beatles, Talking Heads and Nirvana, all history-defining bands have an irreplaceable chemistry that makes them so iconic, and the abscence of founding bassist Kim Deal is in fact a presence that smacks with an almighty pang (not to mention the lack of 'Debaser' and 'Gigantic'). Either way, none can deny that 75% of the original Pixies is still a shit load better than 100% of most of today's indie bands, and that's apparent in every song. He's a man of few words, but all Black Francis has to do is calmly salute to send the Roundhouse into fits of wild hero worship.
As generations come together to scream "then GOOOOOOOOOOOD IS SEVEN" to the encore of 'Monkey Gone To Heaven', the timelessness of The Pixies shines brighter than ever. They've inspired era after era of bands and the original source material is still exciting. Why? Because The Pixies aren't just for your dad, they're for everyone, all the time, forever.
Pixies played:
1. Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
2. In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)
3. Andro Queen
4. Where Is My Mind?
5. Here Comes Your Man
6. Havalina
7. Velouria
8. Bone Machine
9. Indie Cindy
10. Break My Body
11. River Euphrates
12. Crackity Jones
13. Something Against You
14. Hey
15. Subbacultcha
16. Brick Is Red
17. Gouge Away
18. Ed Is Dead
19. Bagboy
20. Big New Prinz (The Fall cover)
21. What Goes Boom
22. Cactus
23. Head On (The Jesus and Mary Chain cover)
24. I've Been Tired
25. Caribou
26. Planet of Sound
Encore:
27. Monkey Gone to Heaven
28. Vamos
