Review: Pixies @ Asbury Park Convention Hall

Pixies @ Asbury Park Convention Hall - October 28, 2011

Photos & Review: James MacFie & Geanna Barlaam

Tag Team, back again! Ladies and gentlemen, your favorite concert-going-reviewing-brewing duo is in da house, this time with THE PIXIES! This time in ASBURY PARK! This time with more BEER!

Now, let’s get the formalities over with, shall we? As a continuation of their Doolittle tour, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of that album’s release, the Pixies have reached out beyond the major US cities and are hitting up smaller venues in what is now known as the “Lost Cities Tour” --using this opportunity to play in places they have never been to before, and after checking their 25-year concert planners, the Pixies decided to visit El Dorado, Atlantis, and finally Asbury Park, NJ’s Convention Hall.

The Mac and I have seen many a good show here at Convention Hall, so this was indeed a tasty treat to add on our excellent musical sundaes. Located on the boardwalk and stretching out over the water, the venue was built between 1928-30, in order to present the illustrious stylings of several esteemed, moustached barbershop quartets. Taking this just a small step further, Convention Hall has seen the likes of Green Day, Bob Dylan, and of course, Debbie Gibson.

Opening Band Time! From the slums of West Palm Beach came Surfer Blood, a very nice looking group of young men who had picked themselves up by their Puma shoe strings to bring us a handful of pleasant-sounding songs. Though not particularly memorable, the youthful band sounded good and left us primed and ready for the main attraction.

After what seemed like an eternity between sets, the lights went down and a movie began! On five small screens played Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, a surrealist nightmare of slicing eyeballs, hands infected with ants, and confused French men wearing lipstick. By far one of my favorite art films of all time, this portion of the show left the rest of the crowd bewildered and drunk. For us, it set the tone for the rest of the show itself: to see a band that was making music before we knew what good music was, a combination of sounds and settings that was at once both self-reflective and surreal.

Enough of this pseudo-intellectual garbage! The Pixies took the stage, with Kim Deal first announcing that they would play some B-sides to get the party started. Choosing tracks from their 1989 "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and "Here Comes Your Man" singles, the songs were (to us) obscure, but let the audience know that they were not about to just go through the motions like a bunch of hip-replaced pussies. They came to rock. And rock they did.

Getting down and dirty into Doolittle’s material, the Pixies plowed through Debaser (!!!), Tame, and Wave of Mutilation. The screen shots in the background throughout the show didn’t, for the most part, take away from the music and maintained the overall tone of the opening film. The Disney sing-a-long screens that played during "Hey," however, were extremely distracting, as the band and the words soon fell out of sync about a quarter of the way through the song. "Hey" also contained one of the biggest blue ball moments of the night, when Mr. Black Francis himself didn’t go for the final yell, ‘that the MOTHER MAKES when THE BABY BREAKS!” There are few things more disappointing than when a song like that peaks with a mumble and gargle. But, we’ll live.

This little rant aside, hearing the entirely of Doolittle live at such an intimate venue was off the charts awesomesauce. Although everyone seems to have lost a bit of their edge (likely due to playing the same songs over and over again for the past 2 years), they still sound GREAT and appear genuinely happy to be hanging out together on stage. After ending with "Gouge Away," each member walked along the stage, waving to the crowd, before coming together for a final bow at the end.

But wait, there’s more! For some reason, they came out to play a slow lullaby version of "Wave of Mutilation." I was hoping this meant they were going to play other songs twice (like, "DEBASER"!), but, they didn’t. Sad. What they did do was play "Into the White" while pumping out so much fog that the stage and band disappeared entirely from view. This especially scared James, as he had just recently watched the movie, The Fog, not even 24 hours earlier. Luckily, no one died.

After another short break to have a sit in their Rascals, the Pixies came out for a final four-song set that was ripped straight from their greatest hits: "Isla de Encanta," "Nimrod’s Son," "Caribou," and of course, "Where is My Mind?" We believe a scarf-sporting douche-man standing next to us, doing a club move and sweating profusely, may have had a minor stroke. But really, who can blame him? We all just saw the Pixies, and we will likely never see them again! Except next year for their ”Lost Cities Tour II: The Pixies in Space”

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Be sure to also check out Mike Koene's review of the Pixies show that took place the night before this one!

Frank Black drowning in fog

Review: Guided By Voices @ McCarren Park

Guided By Voices @ McCarren Park, June 18th, 2011
Photo by Sam Kieldsen; Review by Anjelica LaFurno

Just a few hours ago I was guided by a voice to a state of musical bliss. Robert Pollard has this gift of converting a bustling, sweaty crowd to believe in a higher spirit: the sound of Guided By Voices. I’ve always been a fan of GBV and their lo-fi genius, but seeing them live has made it incredibly clear to me how great this assemblage of Dayton misfits really are. I unfortunately missed their show at Terminal 5 earlier this year in November, so you could only imagine my excitement at the opportunity of seeing GBV’s classic lineup at McCarren Park on Saturday, June 18. GBV headlined for the Northside Festival (as well as Beirut on the previous Friday) and were supported by The Babies, Surfer Blood, and the always-wavy Wavves. I’ve seen my fair share of lo-fi bands and usually this entails a live show that, well, sounds just as mediocre as the recorded audio, yet Guided By Voices somehow manage to make their low quality sound transform into something more than just lo-fi… something spiritual.

Pollard walked onto the stage as the crowd chanted “GBV! GBV!” with a bottle of Hennessy in hand and then began to explain that if is his microphone was not taped he would knock someone in the head while swinging it. The casualness of his onstage commentary throughout the show is parallel to the aesthetic of GBV’s music and image, which was greatly appreciated by the crowd. There is nothing cooler for the concertgoer than feeling a genuine connection with the musical act, breaking down the invisible barrier that usually exists between the two. The show was chock full of Pollard’s stage kicks and continuous sips of Miller Lite while the crowd moshed and sang along.

I found it interesting how each member’s style was immensely different like they all came from a separate era of rock and genre. Bassist Greg Demos leather vest and ruffles shirt specifically amused me. I mean, c’mon a leather vest, so cool and not cool all at once. But let me get back to the music--the set list consisted mostly of music from Bee Thousand (“Always Crush Me”, “Tractor Rape Chain”, “Gold Star for Robot Boy”), but also Alien Lanes, Vampire on Titus, and Propeller (the last song of the night was from this album- “Weed King”) as well. The beauty of GBV live is there is a wide range of songs that can be played, like anything is possible because they’ve recorded such a large catalogue of music over the years.