The Daily Swarm

The New York Times:

Who are they now? What do they mean? What’s the intent? The Pixies are sounding good, but there’s not a lot of motion in their show — verbal, physical, emotional or otherwise. Kim Deal, the band’s bassist and singer, a warm and goofy presence in a pretty cold and motionless band, gave the only commentary between songs. It wasn’t more than a few practiced quips.

But she was necessary, getting on tiptoes to belt the wordless refrain in “Where Is My Mind?” and singing two of the set’s strongest songs, “Gigantic” and “Into the White,” another B side. Most reunited rock bands hope to be Living Constitutions: still dynamic after canonization. To that end, Ms. Deal might be the Pixies’ most important member.

Flavorwire:

Jim DeRogatis, veteran Chicago Sun-Times music critic, has a beef with the Pixies’ latest tour. This time, the band that reunited in 2004 is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its classic album Doolittle by performing the record in full. The notoriously cranky DeRogatis refers to Black Francis, Kim Deal and co. as “a cynical corporation cashing in on blatant nostalgia — a hipper version of Creedence Clearwater Revisited or Journey,” and calls them out for failing to produce any new music in the five years since they’ve been back together. And as far as the show itself goes, well, according to DeRogatis, “None of it was embarrassing, but none of it was extraordinary, either.”

Although we were slightly daunted by this take-down, we showed up optimistic and excited to last night’s Pixies performance at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. And we were far from disappointed. After the jump, we give ten (admittedly Kim Deal-oriented) reasons why Jim DeRogatis is wrong about the Doolittle tour.

Bonus: Jay Reatard as opener: We hadn’t realized there would be opening act, and, truth be told, we were hoping there wouldn’t be one… that is until Jay Reatard took the stage, his mop of curly, blond hair obscuring his face. Few audience members seemed to understand what they were looking at, but we appreciated Reatard’s ballsily brusque delivery. He made no overtures to the audience, failed to mention the evening’s much-anticipated Pixies performance and even managed to rock out on a plugged-in acoustic guitar. Our companion estimated that he made it through 25 songs in 30 minutes, shouting out the title of each before launching in with full energy.

You can find some of DeRogatis’ commentary on the debacle-or-not here.