Pixies - Hammerstein Ballroom, Nov. 25 11/30/2009
By Brendan Harte Gilsenan
The night before Thanksgiving, the Pixies continued their string of New York shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom. On their current tour, the band has been celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their 1989 Doolittle by playing the album in its entirety. B-sides from the same era, as well as a few tunes from other albums, were also incorporated into the set.
The show opened with an eerie black and white silent film by Luis Buñuel, that of which inspired the lyrics of the song “Debaser” (the crowd witnessed a woman’s eye being sliced open - Got me a movie, I want you to know/Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know). As the film concluded, the band took the stage and played through four b-sides from the Doolittle era before pleasing the crowd with the album’s opener, the aforementioned “Debaser”.
Throughout the set bassist Kim Deal was pleasantly interactive with the audience. She joked several times about needing to pause halfway through the performance in order to go turn the record over to side B, and how albums nowadays are too long. The band played through the thirty-nine minute album with the crowd singing, and screaming, along with a majority of the songs.
After a brief leave from the stage, the Pixies returned to play another round of b-sides, which included the stripped down, UK Surf version, of “Wave of Mutilation”. Returning for a second encore, the foursome played tracks off of several of their other albums. One of these was meant to be “Velouria”, off of Bossanova (the name of the album, however, Deal could not recall). Unfortunately, thirty seconds in Black called off the tune, leaving the audience with the biggest disappointment of the night. Kim Deal expressed her disappointment as well, noting that it sounded great, and the audience had been singing along with every word. The problem appeared to lie with the tuning of Black’s guitar, and the band instead jumped right into “Gigantic”.
The Pixies wrapped up the show with “Vamos” off of Surfer Rosa, notably leaving out fan favorite “Where Is My Mind?” from the setlist. With the “Velouria” mishap, and lack of “Where Is My Mind?” aside, the band delivered a solid performance to the New York crowd on the eve of Thanksgiving.
Setlist:
Dancing the Manta Ray
Weird at My School
Bailey's Walk
Manta Ray
Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone to Heave
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away
Encore:
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
Into the White
Encore II:
Bone Machine
Dig for Fire
Gigantic
Vamos
The night before Thanksgiving, the Pixies continued their string of New York shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom. On their current tour, the band has been celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their 1989 Doolittle by playing the album in its entirety. B-sides from the same era, as well as a few tunes from other albums, were also incorporated into the set.
The show opened with an eerie black and white silent film by Luis Buñuel, that of which inspired the lyrics of the song “Debaser” (the crowd witnessed a woman’s eye being sliced open - Got me a movie, I want you to know/Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know). As the film concluded, the band took the stage and played through four b-sides from the Doolittle era before pleasing the crowd with the album’s opener, the aforementioned “Debaser”.
Throughout the set bassist Kim Deal was pleasantly interactive with the audience. She joked several times about needing to pause halfway through the performance in order to go turn the record over to side B, and how albums nowadays are too long. The band played through the thirty-nine minute album with the crowd singing, and screaming, along with a majority of the songs.
After a brief leave from the stage, the Pixies returned to play another round of b-sides, which included the stripped down, UK Surf version, of “Wave of Mutilation”. Returning for a second encore, the foursome played tracks off of several of their other albums. One of these was meant to be “Velouria”, off of Bossanova (the name of the album, however, Deal could not recall). Unfortunately, thirty seconds in Black called off the tune, leaving the audience with the biggest disappointment of the night. Kim Deal expressed her disappointment as well, noting that it sounded great, and the audience had been singing along with every word. The problem appeared to lie with the tuning of Black’s guitar, and the band instead jumped right into “Gigantic”.
The Pixies wrapped up the show with “Vamos” off of Surfer Rosa, notably leaving out fan favorite “Where Is My Mind?” from the setlist. With the “Velouria” mishap, and lack of “Where Is My Mind?” aside, the band delivered a solid performance to the New York crowd on the eve of Thanksgiving.
Setlist:
Dancing the Manta Ray
Weird at My School
Bailey's Walk
Manta Ray
Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone to Heave
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away
Encore:
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
Into the White
Encore II:
Bone Machine
Dig for Fire
Gigantic
Vamos
