Legendary alt-rock pioneers Pixies return to Edinburgh with a set that spans decades, divides opinion, and proves they’re still far from just nostalgia fodder.
You could be forgiven for thinking you’d fallen into a time warp on arriving at the venue. The signage now proudly reads The Edinburgh Corn Exchange—which, funnily enough, is exactly what it used to be called before Academy Music Group slapped their name on it. Nowt as indecisive as marketing types.
But before we hop aboard the Tardis, we get treated to something very current, in the form of support act Big Special, a band making a lot of noise on the UK music scene right now—both figuratively and literally. Their gritty, spoken-word-meets-industrial-post-punk barrage rattled the early crowd, split opinion, and probably won a few new fans. There’s fire in what they’re doing, and the duo more than held their own on the big stage.
Pixies’ setlist pulls from a time before 60% of the audience were even born. It’s part nostalgia trip, part museum exhibit, and eventually — something much more vital. Things take their time getting going. The first 25 minutes might have included big hitters like Here Comes Your Man and Velouria, but you wouldn’t have known it from the crowd. There’s a sense of polite appreciation rather than euphoria— maybe it was just me or were the audience are still shaking off a midweek lethargy?
Probably, much to the frustration of a certain Mr B Francis, the Kim Deal-era tracks are always the big crowd-pleasers—and make no mistake, it’s the likes of Monkey Gone to Heaven and Hey that really ignite the room—the band give the post reformation material a decent run. Indie Cindy, passed off as a curiosity, is starting to show its teeth. Snakes and Kings and Queens get an outing but they’re met with polite indifference. A similar fate befalls tracks from the most recent LP, The Night the Zombies Came. A shame really—they deserve better. Maybe once they’ve matured into their second decade they’ll be retro enough to be appreciated properly.
There’s a reworking Nimrod’s Son that breaks into a mid-tempo shuffle before snapping back into its original visceral form—disorienting but oddly compelling. Cactus, as ominous and thunderous as ever sees the impressive lighting swathe the stage in orange,
Vamos is always a highlight and it’s chaos. Joey Santiago is back to doing his party piece ‘bunnet solo’ during the finger-shredding noise breakdown—equal parts blood and tinnitus. There might have even been the hint of a smile creep onto the faces of the other band members.
By the time we reach Where Is My Mind?, the phones are out, the moment is captured (badly) from hundreds of angles, the band might as well be holograms. But it clearly still hits where it’s meant.
They close with Emma singing Into the White, before disappearing in a blizzard of fuzz, smoke and blinding light, leaving behind a crowd that might not fully understand what they’ve just witnessed—but they know it mattered.
The Pixies Plc Pension Fund tour rolls on. Long may it continue!
It’s easy to forget, amid the heritage status and reverence, that this is still a band pushing forward—albeit at their own oblique angle. There’s no banter, no encore, no crowd-pleasing choreography. Just a stubborn refusal to become their own tribute act. And that, perhaps, is what keeps it all just the right side of vital.
Words and pictures: Calum Mackintosh @ayecandyphotography