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All right, I did go to see the Pixies when they came to the metropolitan Bend area last month, but I’m not going to review their show. I don’t want to review their show. I don’t know how to review shows in general. And it seems particularly wrong to review the Pixies show. The reasons are numerous, but most importantly: this is a magazine dedicated to liberating the music of Portland, and this column is about the live music scene in Portland, and therefore there is nothing to be gained in talking about national bands playing in Bend. Also, I am by no means a Pixies scholar; I’m just an average Pixies fan who loves the same two albums that you love and who isn’t as fond of the same two that you aren’t as fond of. I think they are a brilliant band. I think they’ve changed pop music for the better. Their songs are killers, killers, killers. But this is not a review of the Pixies or their show I would however like to talk about some thoughts I had while watching the Pixies at that mid-sized amphitheater in Bend. (I missed the Decemberists, who opened the show at six thirty. Six thirty! That’s what it said on the ticket and I didn’t believe it. Oh, man, the Decemberists: that would have been relevant to Portland music. Oh, well.) It immediately struck me during the opening chords of the first Pixies song that something was right, which meant that something was very wrong. That is to say that they played every note perfectly, they sang every note on pitch, and as I was standing fifty yards or so and I felt like I was at a museum, watching a Pixies exhibit. They were playing sacred songs as though they were sacred songs, to be dutifully recited for loyal followers. And they’re great songs. Some of the best in the history of music. And they played them perfectly. But the songs were missing the most important elements of rock music: danger, spontaneity, passion, the feeling that everything could fall apart or explode at any moment. I longed for all these elements because they are there in such abundance in the recorded songs, but the Pixies that night were safe. They played every song you could have hoped to hear from them. They played for as long as you could have hoped they would play for. They did an encore. They bowed and said thank you. Aren’t the Pixies supposed to confound the audience’s expectations? I’m not saying that I wished they had been sloppy and not played all of their songs, but... hmmm, maybe I am saying that. It’s mostly the danger factor that I was missing: the relevance to the present moment, and the busting apart of the expectations. However, this is not a review of the Pixies.
I’m actually getting to the point, which is local music. But
for now I have to talk more about the Pixies. They had hundreds of people up close to
the stage who were jumping up and down and dancing and who no doubt
felt the show was great. It was great. They were great. They were
unassailable. I can’t critique anything they did. I feel stupid
even trying. That’s why I’m not reviewing their show.
But the show didn’t translate to me, in the middle of the amphitheater.
And I wasn’t trying to be obstinate or different. I wanted to
be a part of the fun, I really did. It just wasn’t any more
dynamic or exciting than seeing something on T.V.— than seeing
the Pixies on T.V., which isn’t boring, of course, but not nearly
as good as what seeing the Pixies live should be. All this made me think two things: first,
that the Pixies are already over the excitement of reuniting and now
they’re just going through the motions (I’m not informed
enough to judge this, but by several accounts the first shows of the
reunion were exciting and energetic); second, that music in a large
venue is destined to be boring. Taking the second point first, I knew
going to the show that there are always problems with communicating
music in large venues. The last time I had been to an arena show was
five years prior, to see Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. It was thrilling
in the, “Hey, that little guy down there is Paul Simon, and
that other little guy is Bob Dylan” kind of way that it’s
thrilling to see a president speak, but not much beyond that. You’re
watching Paul Simon sing about bridging troubled water, and you’re
in a building that was built solely for professional basketball. The
bass buzzes the plastic seats, and the ten-ton scoreboard looms over
everyone’s head. (Bob hit a late jumper to tie it in regulation
and his defense overwhelmed Paul in overtime.) But Bob Dylan and Paul Simon don’t
exactly play rock and roll. And it may be forgotten or ignored as
often as every time a band like Led Zeppelin agrees to lend their
song (“Rock and Roll” of all things!) to an Oldsmobile
commercial, but rock and roll, if nothing else, is supposed to be
about tearing things down, about being on the edge, about being dangerous.
The minute it’s used primarily to sell something, to me it is
no longer rock music. That’s not to say that you should never
make money from music; but when money is your very first motivation,
and you try to justify everything else after that, I think the music
is dead and everyone can see that. I don’t mean to put this all on the
Pixies. Their show was just what got me thinking. They deserve their
success. Maybe they were having an off night. Maybe I was having an
off night. The Pixies are still wonderful. It’s exactly because
they are so wonderful that a Pixies live show seemed like it would
be the ultimate rock experience for so many people. And it’s
those unbearable expectations that made it a mediocre experience. It has made me appreciate the smaller shows,
the shows most people don’t even consider when they’re
thinking of going out to see live music. The shows that start late
and where the drummer’s pedal breaks, and the sound guy is a
jerk. The shows where the singer is so pissed off at his bass player
that he decides in the middle of the second song that he’s going
to put an ad out for someone new. The shows where only half as many
people came out as even the most realistic person had estimated. The
shows where all this tension and frustration creates energy about
the music. Where things happen that don’t normally happen. Where
you, in the audience, who has never seen this band before are surprised,
confounded, put on edge. The shows that you almost didn’t go
to, but went anyway, at the last minute, for no real good reason.
The shows where, if just one thing had been different it wouldn’t
have worked, but for some reason it did. These are the shows where
something relevant is happening, even if it’s not executed well
or with the greatest amount of skill. Art is about communicating feelings,
not about getting everything perfect. Just a couple days after I saw the Pixies, I was walking around downtown for MusicFest, going to see a band who was scheduled to play at Berbati’s, and I stumbled upon a drum regiment playing in the streets. They stood in a circle all dressed in black, all pounding on incredibly loud drums, and what was fantastic to me was how a group of people could just stand in a circle and play their drums and everyone knew what it meant. The group was twenty or so people with drums trying to cobble together a collective rhythm from their individual drums. Nobody needed a sign to explain to the crowd what was happening. Nobody even needed a ticket or a program to tell them what to see. And the band weren’t flawless by any means. But after half an hour of pounding on their drums, the skies started to swirl and release a few sheets of rain, and people started to cheer, as though the music had made the weather change. That was a magical moment that I’ll remember for a long time. No expectations or history to live up to. Music. Boom boom. As simple as that. |
