On June 16th, Pixies took the stage at the Van Buren in downtown Phoenix to perform a 29-song two-album show, composed of live versions of both Bossanova (1990) and Trompe Le Monde (1991). The venue was at capacity, and the setlist included over 30 songs, but it was only the first night of their Phoenix performances —the second night was designated for their freshest album, The Night the Zombies Came (2024).
Before they took the stage, Kurt Vile opened with a mystical set that was a surprisingly fitting complement to the Pixies’ hard grunge, matching some of their whimsical and non-conformist attributes. Vile’s energy was laid-back, and he was adorned in flannel and long, messy hair – so it was no shock that his music was hypnotic, lazily beautiful, and with the bass and reverb, incredibly hypnotic. The audience was in a trancelike state from his 2013 song “Wakin’ On a Pretty Day”- an almost 10-minute track that meandered just as someone would wander on a carefree day. Vile’s music was dusted with ‘90s influences and existential lyrics, an introduction to the somewhat absurdist world that the Pixies were about to build with their music.
Pixies’ 1990 album Bossanova started their show, going in track order with the opener “Cecelia Ann.” Bossanova was the kind of album that sparked an idea of what music would sound like in the ‘90s, with its upbeat grunge and gothic undertones. The lyricless surf rock track of “Cecelia Ann” enveloped the crowd in waves of heavy sound, getting people dancing, even though the surf rock was drenched in a melancholic twang that set the tone for the entire set. The audience was blown away when Black Francis’ blood-curdling screams on his next track, “Rock Music”, reminded them that his music isn’t purely instrumental.
Their Bossanova chapter wasn’t only a forecast of what the decade was about to hold- it was a way for the band to incorporate older styles of music, like blues in “Down to the Well”. It provided an opportunity to build upon their instrumentation, like in “Velouria”, where the room was immersed in shoegaze distortion. It was an era where they took bolder songwriting routes, as seen in “The Happening”, a narrative track that becomes more melodic as it progresses. The song is emblematic of their ideas in this record, from the rough shrill of Black Francis’ voice in the beginning to the last thirty seconds, which sing “my head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free.” The Bossanova set was shrouded in themes of the beckoning Southwest, including Black’s infatuation with both the natural and extraterrestrial curiosities of the desert. Frank Black’s dreamy guitar shimmered through the room as he sang “Walking in the breeze/On the plains of Old Segona (Arizona)” as screams of excitement and pride erupted throughout the venue.
Before transitioning to the performance of Trompe Le Monde, guitarist Joey Santiago and Black Francis took turns riffing off of each other until they began the song “Trompe le Monde,” the self-titled introduction to the album. They were accompanied by bassist and background singer Emma Richardson and drummer David Lovering.
The next stage of the performance was less about feeling and more about noise and energy, just like the appropriately named “Planet of Sound”, which showcased Black’s distorted, radio-transmitted sounding vocals. In U-Mass, Black found another way to play with his vocal range by drawing out his screams even longer in the satirical take on college life, where he screamed “it’s educational” like a battle cry. “Head On” had a more bare bones, summer hit sound that wasn’t as vocally taxing, and the whole album ended on “The Navajo Know”, another ode to Black’s interest in the Southwest and the lack of intelligence of Western society.
Instead of ending the concert after such a high-energy set, the show kept its electricity. The band performed a new track from The Night the Zombies Came, “The Vegas Suite,” a rare moment where Black played an acoustic-electric guitar and the haunting vocals of Emma Richardson had their chance to shine. After the calm interlude, they jumped into fan favorites like “Here Comes Your Man” and ended with the famous “Where is My Mind.” The performance wasn’t only a memory of early 90s rock, but was a reminder of the limits musicians can dare to stretch to in the future.
