Two great gigs in one week.

H

HamishR

Well-known member
After the high of seeing the Hives not so long ago we have had a wonderful week of music. Last week we saw the Pixies at Fremantle Prison (well it used to a colonial era prison but now it's a concert venue) and we saw the Church playing their singles this week. I don't know how well known The Church is outside of Australia but they are a Sydney based band who first came to prominence in about 1981. They are known for their paisley shirts and jangley, atmospheric music. Front man Steve Kilbey is the only original member left but he is a wonderful, funny frontman and responsible for most of their best known songs. Under the Milky Way was featured in the movie Donnie Darko, for example.

When I learnt that Kilbey was the only original member left I was a bit dubious about the gig, because I am quite a fan of Peter Koppes, one of the original guitarists. He is influenced by Dave Gilmour and has come up with some killer hooks over the years. But I needn't have worried. The band was outstanding and fully did justice to over 40 years of songs. The gig was in an old cinema and the sound and lighting were top tier. The Church are a band I have seen fairly regularly over the past 40 years and some gigs have been better than others. This was a cracker. If you're into slightly psychadelic, paisley influenced music they are definitely worth checking out. We loved the concert - better than expected. The crowd loved it and it was weird but welcome to see a band we have only ever seen in crowded pubs in the luxury of a seated venue!

The Pixies? Well, this is the fifth time we have seen them (!) after thinking we would never see them after they split in the '90s. They are one of our favourite-of-all-time bands. This time they played at a venue we last saw the Sex Pistols at, with the 4th(?) bass player we have seen them with. We love the Pixies so much that once when they didn't visit Perth on their Australian tour we flew to Melbourne to see them - that was probably my favourite Pixies gig. Melbourne is about 3500km from where we live, and worth every kilometre. This time they played all of Bossanova, all of Trompe La Monde and then a few other classic Pixies tunes like Wave of Mutilation (Cabaret version) and Where is My Mind. Both Joey and Charles are great guitar players. They never disappoint. I love their mix of achingly beautiful melody and extreme violence. Charles/Frank/Black Francis was actually quite chatty for once. The sound was excellent and the lighting good too. For an outdoor gig it still felt intimate. It was one of those gigs where everyone was so happy. The vibe is usually euphoric at a Pixies concert but this one was particularly happy. Everyone was floating on air afterwards. Truly one of the most amazing live acts I have seen, and I've seen a few!
 
My wife's from Perth, she says Fremantle Prison is definitely worth a visit, with or without gig :D She grew up with The Church, and sometimes plays them at home. There are only a handful songs I like and I find them a bit soporific - nice atmosphere and vibe, though. For some reason, in Europe they tend to get lumped in with goth or goth-adjacent stuff. I think I remember seeing them on the bill at Wave Gotik Treffen, which is possibly the biggest all-dark-stuff fest worldwide. They never really got much airplay besides that, at least not to my knowledge.
 
I saw "The Dry" the day before yesterday hearing a somebody sing " Under the Milkyway".
Before there was MTV unplugged we had a radio and TV series here in the Netherlands called: 2 meter sessies (2 meter sessions) . Acoustic live recorded sessions from bands some famous some less famous. Some very good.
The Church did their hit in those days a semi acoustic version of it.
 
IMO The Church are one of those bands who have some great songs and a fair bit of filler. The key attraction for us with this concert was that they were playing their singles. There are a lot of them and they are generally pretty good and often excellent. I think it's funny they get lumped in with Goth flavoured bands in Europe - here they're famously pot-heads who are closer to hippies than goths! Steve Kilbey used to have a podcast where he would discuss all of the various drugs he had tried (most of them).

I have quite a few of their albums but they're not a daily play. But they are one of those "soundtrack of my life" kinda bands - Bands which you don't listen to a lot but sometimes one of their songs pops into your head so you play the album. And a gig of their singles is a great idea.


 
Ahhh. I saw the Pixies back on the Trompe Le Monde tour (with Pere Ubu opening up) on the JHU campus. It was, indeed, a great show, and we broke a few rows of seats in Shriver Hall that night.

They were my favorite band at the time, for sure. I was bummed when they split, but still saw Frank Black a couple of times with his first solo albums.
 
I would have loved to have seen Frank Black in his solo shows. But the Pixies are one of our favourite bands ever, and I'm gad we got to see them while Kim Deal was still in the band. She was a big part of their sound. Her vocals were always way out there and added so much to the overall weirdness, in a good way.

It's interesting to me that the bands who are so influential rarely get emulated accurately. ACDC are hugely influential but nobody really sounds like that - they always use too much distortion. Similarly with the Pixies - so many bands used their quiet-loud thing but nobody really gets the emotional breadth of the Pixies. And while Frank Black was excellent on his own I think he needs the whole thing that is the Pixies to reach those heights. Every member of the Pixies has their own thing going on. Just a fantastic convergence of talent.
 
Happy to hear concerts are still being enjoyed!! ☺️

Whenever I am moving in a crowd, my stress levels elevate tremendously; post-pandemic, knife violence fantasies have become a method of me coping mechanism when moving among a crowd. And that's just random, normal people minding their own business; no assholes or anything. At a gig, it turns me very cynical... Seeing only things to dislike in a performance. :(

Stories like yours, @HamishR help me think about getting this fixed, instead of putting on my figurative warface on every time I walk out the door, in defence of everything...
 
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