QAnyone who went to Campo Pequeno expecting to see a classic concert by the Pixies, hoping for a compilation of the best ‘hits’ or a brief serenade to the argument that ‘good music was made in the old days’ ended up leaving the arena positively mistaken.
For two hours, and after more than 30 themes, the North Americans ignored the status of those who do not need to do more than what is known. The group led by Black Francis presented new songs, an almost complete last album and a concert in which alternative rock, which influenced both its contemporaries and more recent names in the genre, made the various generations vibrate in the almost sold out room in Lisbon.
Opening soon came the older themes. ‘Here Comes Your Man’with its unforgettable opening, appeared after the third song, almost to let Francis, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and Paz Lenchantin play what they liked best.
From here, it was more difficult for the more inattentive fans to understand what music they were listening to – but they did not stop jumping and applauding. The last album, ‘Doggerel’, released in 2022, was played almost in its entirety, and the band was not shy about making the concert a sample of their post-return to the stage repertoire, in 2014.
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songs like ‘Who’s More Sorry Now’, ‘Thunder and Lightning’, ‘Haunted House’ It is ‘Pagan Man’ were some of the ones that marked the passage through the newest work. Since 2014, after many predicted that they would only return for a handful of concerts, the group has stayed and has already made as many albums in its second life as in the first – before ‘Doggerel’, the Pixies even released ‘Indie Cindy’ (2014 ), ‘Head Carrier’ (2016) and ‘Beneath the Eyrie’ (2019) – and these too were covered, notably with ‘All the Saints’.
Throughout the concert, Black Francis and the rest of the band remained stoic onstage. Without exchanging a word with the audience, Francis, supported by Santiago’s ‘riffs’, which remain as precise and clean as they were 30 years ago, does not seem to age, at least in his voice, singing and vociferating the same strange and sometimes confusing lyrics. he built for the Pixies.
In the meantime, there was more than enough time for a passage through rock, sometimes punk, sometimes alternative, which made the Pixies one of the most cherished groups for those who lived through the late 80s and early 90s. ‘Caribou’, ‘Let’s go’, ‘Isla de Encanta’, ‘hey’ and the classic ‘Where Is My Mind’ left old and young alike screaming, trying to make themselves heard in the face of Campo Pequeno’s questionable acoustics (not helped by the drums heard in a frustrating echo by David Lovering).
In the end, the concert closed with ‘Winterlong’the music by Neil Young that the North Americans have been using to end the shows, just as they had already done in Paredes de Coura, where they passed in August last year.
Two hours later, Black Francis left without saying a word more than he put into his lyrics. A bow, a huge show of appreciation for the group and another night in the long career of the Pixies was done. A career that seems to have turned a page: the Pixies are no longer a nostalgia band, they are no longer a legends act in Glastonbury. They are a group tied to their music but, fortunately for their fans, without ever making the mistake of clinging to what it once was, but to what it could be.
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