The Pixies owe us nothing. The elder siblings of our alt-rock post-punk revolution, we look to them, yearning for the brilliance of the late-80s surge of misfits, outcasts, and town criers who led us away from stadium rock and tight pants and towards the emotional sleeves of wheat paste, second-hand duds, and endless cigarette monologues. Their mix of mind-opening lyrics and whine-high instrumentation was the minstrel music, the bang anthems, for a few generations of college-smarty-pants who sought a less than hardcore way to be edgier than the mainstream lives they would soon live themselves.

The Pixies performance threw us cake and we passively mashed it on our faces. We, the angst riddled pilgrims of anti-rock, lost causes, and the corporate plundering of all things cool, we bent over and forgave the band in order to get our sentimental fixes. The snake will eat its tail. The Pixies should eat themselves, blow smoke, and release short documentaries that highlight Kim Deal’s genius, because she’s more genuine than all the name changes Frank Black can muster. I don’t care anymore that he’s a master song craftsman. He drags the band down to a desperate level of agacant and ennuyeux. There, I said it. But I don’t totally blame them. I blame us all for conjuring them out of middle-life to bloat-belly pantomime sentimental catch-phrase-tunes that have become the validation of Gen X excuses and the lullabies for the Gen Y complaints.

I was like nearly everyone else in the crowd, counting songs, flipping through my fingers to pin-down the dates of when and where I was when I heard this one, or that one. How I could stamp my passport of alt-rock cred on the loose connections of how I knew them first, before my friends, before you posers. The glee of so many in the audience who shimmied here and there couldn’t trump the slouch-slacked de-enthusiasm of the gray-shorn former punks who kept within themselves as best they could, hiding their colors, playing the role, and mending their own failures as a rock-star franchisees through the fabricated bliss of rehashed old songs.

The band could care less. Frank looked out at us and saw dollar signs through the haze. Truth hurts, but we deserve it. Kim tried her outbound hardest to break free, spicing the event with the gems that make live performance addictive, but even she seemed fearful to add too much time to the playlist. Nobody wants to piss off Frank. We’ve all learned that.

But wait, since when are the Pixies the Grateful Dead playing to an audience of set list fanatics, who, for the most part besides the pockets of psyched pogo-ers and overdrunk party-queens doing the swin, slouched passively letting the songs wash over them. Sure we all did our alt-rock due diligence of head bops, shoulder slides, and smile-glances at our friends, lipping the lyrics to our favorite parts, pointing to ourselves to say “this one is mine.” Since when are we all so boring? Was it Chicago? Will NYC put them to the challenge? Will the Boston show be insane?

I sought the energy of the night, not from the band, but from the eked enthusiasm of my audience-mates. The band was dormant (well, not David Loverling, or Kim Deal, let’s say Frank was the pantomime). Either way, the crowd now owns the Pixies songbook, we’ve ingested it, it tattoos our soul. But we were not all together now, singing along together within the songs. We sing the songs alone, in bubbles of our own memories, ignoring the liveness of this live-moment. The band was a spectacle, an act, a recital. They were the zoned-out TVs that we couch-surf amidst. We sit cross-legged in comfy clothes with fuzzy slippers saying, “that’s my song, I was here when I heard it.” “That one is my song, I remember where I was.” Wait. Let me text my friends.

Frank Black is a businessman. He should have found a different path to a paycheck than the Doolittle tour. Seemingly bored from playing long-old tracks his conceit and cynicism was hard to tamp down. I do not understand why Kim and the rest of them put up with Frank, maybe they can’t refuse the paycheck either. Maybe that’s all the Pixies ever really were, a great songwriting record recording team, maybe my expectations are unruly.

Screw that, I hate feeling taken advantage of and I hate feeling manipulated. I admit it, I relinquished myself to this Pixies tour to finger-plug the gaps in my de-punked life. To hold the foundation of the who I think I am in place long enough for the next greatest hits or reunion tour to hit the streets. Frank, you deserve my money, but you’re not getting anymore, at least not until you decide to do a tour of Surfa Rosa, play another unexpected third encore of more of my favorite songs (which was the only part of your performance you seemed really jazzed about), and I’ll shill out another paycheck-worth of tickets just to watch you defeat us. In the meantime, I’ll download the ringtones.

Concert Review: The Breeders, The Vogue, Indianapolis (August 6, 2009)

Kim Deal can see the world in a cold clarity that would make most mad; a ramble pile, a mess, a happenstance, and thrives amidst the foibles by generating her own upward forward lift thrust. Bulldozing through the trials there’s no BS, no plastic pleasantries, and in the rude truth of her songs (and to those who witness her life) both a love-lust attraction and a crazy fearful retreat. In the best cases the stars have aligned to make it right, shining the lights of opportunity and survival down upon her path. Her brilliance turns the wacky disaster of life into a haphazard recipe shoved right through the funnel. She churns it out of the Victrola as love letter songs for all who will listen.

Kim and Kelley Deal together are mirror statues to the road less traveled. Planted near the gates of the post-punk pantheon, they block the route with their glittering eyes, joyous appetites, and saltworn rat-a-tat-tat. Seeing them onstage is a family reunion, a non-holiday with those 2nd cousins you love but don’t see enough. Together you scurry to the basement, away from the boredom adults seem to make (but whose cigarettes you’ve stolen), and tell dirty jokes on the ping-pong table.

Don’t fuck with the Deal sisters! But as Kelley says, “…one of the things I explain to people when they’re playing is that they have to put more fuck in it.” Sisters with their particular energy light bonfires by breathing. Kim and Kelley banter on stage without pretense or care. I didn’t want their show to end. I want to preserve each glance, to press them in a butterfly book of mid-90’s alt-a-rama, keep them in a music box that when opened launches a gigglefit of screwball looks followed by a heavy metal that pounds the box from the shelf. I want to be their roadie, who sat at stage left for most of the show, half fan, half crew, bobbing his head to his favorites, then pertly tuning a guitar when Kim handed one to him. The glee Kim and Kelley exude is amplified by their ability to tap into the resonating tones that sell a million records. How is it possible? These two?

Kim’s seasoned alto voice rises feathered above the heartbeat churn of guitar driven overdrive. Sometimes Kelley joins to harmonize, a ritual. Two figures squinting their eyes above the altarfire, pounding the skins to appease the demons, we root them on. They’ve got us, tranced, we rock along the dancefloor in alt-rock familiarities of pogos and headbops. Sometimes a couple will spin-off, a time machine, and pair-up to sock-hop, while over there, near the bar, another couple will breakdance.

Their set-list mixed a range of songs from their entire songbook, with the crowd most revved when they heard the hits. At first hearing the crowd applaud the hit-song, you cringe, you don’t want to think of this band as a one-hit wonder, and you don’t want the band to think that you think of them as a one-hit-wonder, but Kim says it best, “That used to be a popular stance for indie-rockers to take. If somebody actually liked one of their songs, then they would hate the song. I was never like that.” Thank goodness for Kim Deal. As the show went on her gaze moved greater skyward, seeking the warmth of the toplights. She’s my flower, unsoured though toiled. Only the brightest flowers dip so deep, then spring back up and smile at the sun.

The pure joy emoted by the Breeders, mixed with their syrupy lag-time lyrics and thump thump of bodysoul beats, causes a relinquishing, a possession. We succumb to their elixir of agelessness, frailty, and funk. We try to squeeze all the magic potion from their presence. Being with them for that little while we too can escape, live in their smiles, and exorcise ourselves from the humdrum gravity of the rules we’ve chosen to live by.

PJ Harvey, John Parish & Band, June 11th, Vogue Theater, Indianapolis

The pre-roll of blues music, meant to set a tone, could’ve been the foreboding instruct, a tell, of the bare-essential instrumentation of the PJ Harvey/John Parish set and band. In larger venues the sound system is the big brother, putting the band on its shoulders, carrying them. At the Vogue, a smaller venue, the squeaks and chirps of guitar straps and foot pedals became part of the mix. I’ve rarely been that close in sight and sound to musical performers I revere. There’s always been a distancer formula in play, the more you love a band, the farther you seem to be away from them.

When the band took the stage, they took notice of less-than-sold-out crowd. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of bands, in all cases those first looks out into the lights, the first engagement, you see the re-estimation of the performers, sliding the scales between their excitement, their professionalism, what they expect to do and what the crowd might give them back. PJ, with her intoxicating and sly smirk/smile gazed up, glazed over, and the band began their set with “Black Hearted Love,” the single from their new record. The choice pointed to a band “on tour,” they have records to sell and might have considered this smaller market unfamiliar with their history, reminding them of who they are by playing the pop single. John chose a spot, up in the balcony, slightly to his 1 o’clock, to squint towards as if stretching to greet an old friend while tweaking a pained internal wound, to both seek the ghost and devise it.

The crowd was eclectic, and from the floor looked like more people hid in the wings or back or up in the balcony than came forward to address the band (except for one drugged couple near the stage making out throughout the set, or the teetering drunk few who yelled at each other about nonsense throughout the quiet songs). I wondered whether PJ had become a novelty, an icon for the alt scene, drawing this audience to the show for the spectacle rather than for the music. Towards the end of the set a young man, intent on filming a whole song on his blackberry stepped in front of most everyone, held his hands up high to capture the scene. His distance from the reality of the moment, and everyone else, stung me as a symptom of our reality-show era. One of the zealous security guards (who were bent on locking down this very passive crowd) asked him to stop and he retreated back to the safety of the dark corners.

PJ and John made modest notes of the small ruckuses either by slowly closing their eyelids, tilting their heads slightly down or away, or seeking their own clarity by gazing within the spotlights. Few people danced though all were very appreciative with their applause. Some fans created t-shirts for PJ, delivering them to her towards the end of the set. There was less gratitude for John, though standing next to the smoldering dollishly-suggestive affliction that is PJ Harvey is a tough partner to hold up to. The sounds of John Parish, the half-broken wood-saw rhythm-boom of his guitar tone, wash over you, pushes you back a bit, but doesn’t mean to intrude. He’s the cool brother, the distant uncle, the nice chap who is so understated you can’t tell if he’s having a good time or miserably resigned. I can’t get over the combination and his pairing with PJ. You expect them to explode under their intensity. You want to be their best friends, want to take care of them, cook them dinner. As a musician I want to play in their band, to play with them, to make songs with them.

By the third song PJ decided she needed to drive the show. The band was next going to Chicago and a probable room of intense faithful, and could’ve mailed in this performance, but she didn’t. Glancing at her band-mates, her dancing became more animated, inviting the crowd to join her through her forward motion steps. The band took notice and picked it up. More people entered the dance floor, and although the crowd seemed more intimidated than open hearted, the energy of the room tilted favorably. The rest of the show breezed by, I remember snap-shot candids of PJ’s expressions, John’s hands, the drummer’s bob, and the old-world muteness of Eric Drew Feldman and Giovanni Ferrario. The band closed out the performance with a couple of John’s songs, a grateful touch, a tip of the hat.

Looking back at last night, I feel that show was more of a conversion ceremony, a renewal of vows, than recital. A reminder that personal dissonant songs are celebrations as well as anti-dotes, invigorating as well as thought-provoking, and that the greatest lesson the blues can teach us is that the reward for sharing your soul’s depth is much greater than the bitter malaise of keeping it all to yourself.