While he was dedicating a more quiet song to his wife who was in the audience, adding ‘it was time to bring some delicate personal stuff’, a poll dancer was flying above his head, and during his song ‘Drugs Taught me a Lesson’, a contortionist popped out of giant plastic pill to end up totally naked while dancing in front of Dave’s guitar
But, tell me, which other performer sees his or her performance interrupted just after the third song by a torrent of flowers delivered by fans, and followed by an effusive demonstration of love with gifts, books arriving on stage as if it was Christmas three weeks in advance?
Pixies have new songs, ‘What goes boom’, ‘Blue eyed hexe’, ‘Bagboy’, ‘Another toe in the ocean’, we heard them, mostly around the second part of the show, and unfortunately, I became a little bored at this precise moment. Too bad, because I really wanted to be blown away at that show
Jehnny Beth – and this is mostly her I was looking at the whole time despite the excellent musicianship of her bandmates – had a fantastic and creepy presence on stage.
So no more fireworks in the butt from Hank, but Sylvester was completely at ease in the middle of this mix of homosexual aesthetics, sex and anal references, and overall falsely macho attitude, that was making some guys in the crowd super excited. The band’s music has been described as a mix of hard rock, punk hardcore, and glam rock
Oh I totally see why these kids are all over the lyrics now! ‘Cause we were kissing for hours with her hands in my trousers’, screamed Gareth in the first song they played ‘By Your Hand’,… ‘I will wake, I will bake phallic cake’ in ‘Romance Is Boring’,… ‘Your tongue the tide/your lips the shore/I am the jetsam overboard’ in ‘Hello Sadness’,
With two talented female vocalists sharing the lead vocals and two equally talented male vocalists, the songs, which often had a poppy side, were sung with multi-voice soulful harmonies, a classical touch on the keys, southern percussion and a twang-gospel touch. The whole show seemed to be a series of gospel-inspired stomp anthems with a sound almost too pretty at times
Even if catching lyrics live is always difficult, it was obvious that there was a lot of storytelling in these songs which talked about pain, death, murder, violence and loss, definitely not light stuff… ‘I wish I was an outlaw/Spend my life kicking ass and takin’ names/There would be no love lost/Town to town killin dreams’, he sang in ‘The Pilot’, you get the picture!
What was also remarkable was the instantaneous catchiness of some songs as they triggered a warm response from the Saint Motel public. There were a few spine-tickling soaring choruses, a few stormy and passionate moments, some almost-a-capella harmonies, and even a few foot-tapping songs
The show was effectively a real success, as the quartet brought the energy to the high-ceiling chandeliers of the El Rey a few times during their set, and the crowd provided a feedback matching the effervescence on stage…. Did I see a few crowd surfers? Yes!
Their noisy explosive music was complex, thunderously dense, going in all directions during the same song, with many propulsive sonic assaults and very few quiet moments. They could have been a hybrid between Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai
With not a single word during the whole set, in a semi-darkness only disturbed by dim lights on the floor, they played their long, intricate and ever-changing instrumentals, that had total head-banging-metal moments and so much more. I
Did I say quiet? Man, I could have heard a fly moving a single wing, and when some security guard’s walkie-talkie made a sound in the middle of a song, it was received by one hundred shhhhhuts from the audience.
At 41, he is not the young adventurous musician coming up with all this weird palette of incredible original sounds, but he still can play them very well, doing in succession ‘Where It’s At’ and ‘Hotwax’.
there is no real frontwoman as Carrie shared the stage with Mary Timony, battling her legs apart with roaring guitars, affronting her, in the middle of the stage several times during the show, in front of Janet Weiss’ tireless and powerful drumming
When they appeared on stage, bathed in a warm gold light, sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg on guitar and keyboard, seemed to come from another time with their long auburn hair, sparkling gypsy-folk dresses and cowboy boots
It would be easy to get cynical with this outpouring of goodness spread on the audience by a band that dresses up like a gospel choir and wants to us to believe they all travel in a escaped-from-the-60s flower-power van. Haven’t we passed this since the cynical and grungy 90s?
at least the title track and a few other tunes sounded quite familiar
placing the creepy bar very high
‘It was awesome’ a guy next to me said
intricate post-rock compositions
everything looked grand and stylish, the beards and the suits of course
