Pixies: Anything But Understated

Pixies w/ the Orwells
Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA
12.03.17

Walking into the Paramount for the Pixies show, I imagined a very chill, quiet crowd listening to slow space jams. But this was an assumption by someone who only knows a handful of the veteran indie rock band’s songs (don’t judge me!), and I had clearly underestimated. Walking out of the Pixies’ show, I felt happily deaf. Even with my pro-quality earplugs in, my head was ringing after a concert that was far from chill or quiet for that matter. It was LOUD, very loud.

Lead singer Black Francis walked slowly on the dimly lit stage, humbly smiling at the barely-lit crowd. A backdrop of spotlights—laid out in a wall-to-wall grid—blasted bright green, hiding the band from the crowd in blindness. Yet, they screamed in excitement as the band started off their set with “Gouge Away.”

As a photographer taking in the stage, I noticed the bass player looked so familiar but could not place her in the moment. Finally, after photographing the first three songs, I continued to watch the show from the side of the Paramount theatre and realized the bassist is Paz Lenchantin, the original bassist for A Perfect Circle. Never having the opportunity to see that original APC lineup, it was cool to see what she had moved onto and if anything, she seemed to fit seamlessly with the Pixies with her long slow bass moves.

Each song throughout the show was choreographed to very specific lighting, matching every hard beat and giving the crowd wonderful visuals. At one point, the lights blared solid white, silhouetting the band perfectly.

In the end, if you were a die hard Pixies fan, you heard what could be considered one of their best setlists. But if you were a newbie like me, you just got a plenty of inspiration to go home and dive into.

Pixies Setlist
Gouge Away
Wave of Mutilation
Classic Masher
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Um Chagga Lagga
Something Against You
Isla de Encanta
Caribou
Magdalena 318
Cactus
Subbacultcha
All the Saints
Ana
Mr. Grieves
Nimrod’s Son
Motorway to Roswell
Might as Well Be Gone
Head Carrier
I Bleed
Crackity Jones
Broken Face
Bel Esprit
River Euphrates
All I Think About Now
Debaser
Velouria
Snakes
Silver Snail
Where Is My Mind?
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
Winterlong (Neil Young cover)
Encore
Hey
Vamos