The Pixies started their 3 day, 4 show, 95% sold out NYC run tonight at the Hammerstein Ballroom.  If you didn’t know this is the Doolittle Tour.  For the anniversary of Doolittle the band is doing a tour and playing the entire album plus b-sides.  Very cool.  Anyway I’d seen The Pixies once in 2005 and was incredibly impressed.  They really brought it.  And tonight was no exception.

I arrived at the venue later than I wanted to, around 5, but the line was oddly very short, especially for a 6:30 door time and a sold out show for a band everyone wants to see.  I met up with 2 friends of mine and we waited.  Sure enough at 6:30 they let us in.  We got spots right along the barrier, which for the record was much further from the stage than it had any right being.  Anyway we waited until 8 when the opening band Black Gold went on.

I’d actually been recommended to Black Gold by the people I was with, as they used to play them on their college radio show.  But I have to admit to never really giving them a chance.  They surprised me though by being, if not quite my thing, at least talented and enjoyable.  Their half hour set did seem to drag, but I don’t think that had anything to do with them and more that we’d all been standing a very long time at this point and just wanted The Pixies.

So the stage setup began at 8:30, most of The Pixies gear was already in place, which was wonderful.  In fact they pulled the visor off the drums and you got this:

The Famous Bass Drum Logo

The setup was fast and as such the Pixies show started at 9 with the inspiration for Debaser, Salvador Dali’s Un chien andalou playing to some really epic score.  Then finally the band emerged and went right into Dancing The Manta Ray, a lesser known b-side.  Actually Kim started by shouting “B-Sides”.

Gigantic

In fact Kim narrated the whole night.  The set started with “B-Sides”, then as she narrated, “More B-sides”, and “B-Sides so obscure we had to learn them by downloading them from somewhere on the internet”.  I was so close I got to hear a little conversation not on microphone after that remark where Frank thanked her for making the charts and said he really appreciated it.  Then after that was through they plowed right into Doolittle, starting with Debaser of course.  Kim also narrated through Doolittle giving us little updates such as “almost though the first side” and “last song of the first side”, and “onto the second side”.  They played the entire album in order of it’s tracklisting.

The highlight for me was Hey.  Hey is always a highlight because not only is it a great song but when you really think about it, it’s incredibly difficult to play live.  There aren’t really cues in the beginning, it’s all sort of silence and getting everyone to come in on the right silent beat is an amazing feat.  Tonight unfortunately Kim came in a little too fast, but I’ve heard them pull it off exactly how it sounds on the album before so they can do it.  It really is an amazing piece of showmanship.  Also hearing the whole crowd singing along was amazing.

Speaking of the sold out crowd (about 2,500 is capacity there) they were much more subdued that I was expecting.  I’ve seen footage from their 2004 tour and people were moshing and crowdsurfing.  At the show I attended in 2005 things were more toned down only because it was a venue with seats.  But I expected and braced myself to get shoved into that barricade with the full force of a moshing audience and it never happened.

Hey

After Doolittle’s closer Gouge Away, the band exited the stage.  They came back a few minutes later for the first encore with Kim’s announcement that this was “More B-Sides, but this time ones you probably know”.  This was a short 2 song encore consisting of Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf version) and Into The White.

Into The White started and they literally just filled the entire place with smoke.  You couldn’t see anything.  This is an actual picture:

Into The White...literally

Although it did allow for this cool pic:

Joey emerges from the white

After Into The White the band evacuated the stage again.  And after what was an agonizingly long time came out once again after the smoke cleared for the second encore.  Kim narrated that these were songs that had nothing to do with Doolittle.  So they played a few of their other hits, closing the night with Gigantic.

I could not recommend seeing this band more highly.  They were especially on top of their game tonight, everyone seemed in a great mood, with the exception of Joey who was on the far side of the stage from the rest of the band which is why you won’t see any of my picture featuring all 4 playing at once, the stage was too big.  I believe most of their tour is already sold out but if you find a show that’s not definitely go.  Tickets are still available for the 1am Wednesday night/Thursday morning show here in NYC.  Also they’re selling official bootlegs of every show on the tour.  You can buy them at http://www.doolittlelive.com.

Here’s the Setlist as far as I can remember:

1. Dancing The Manta Ray

2. Weird at My School

3. Bailey’s Walk

4. Manta Ray

5. Debaser

6. Tame

7. Wave of Mutilation

8. I Bleed

9. Here Comes Your Man

10. Dead

11. Monkey Gone to Heaven

12. Mr. Grieves

13. Crackity Jones

14. La La Love You

15. No. 13 Baby

16. There Goes My Gun

17. Hey

18. Silver

19. Gouge Away

Encore:

20. Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)

21. Into the White

Encore 2:
22. Isla De Encanta

23. Vamos

24. Nimrod’s Son

25. Where Is My Mind?

26. Gigantic

I will be updating this post later in the week to include audio from the show, so come back for that.

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And check out our massive photo gallery from the show: