After buying a good ticket (up on a terrace, with an excellent view) about a year in advance, I almost didn’t go to the concert last night. I was tired and in the mood for rest and reflection. But come on, now: this was the Pixies, playing in Budapest for the very first time in their thirty-six years of existence. I was introduced to their music in late 1991. It changed my idea of what a song could be. There was no one like them, and they influenced huge swaths of what came afterward. Their lyrics: morbid, funny, endearing, bizarre, full of curious stories and verbal twists; their music, driving and dreamy, screaming and whispering, fast and slow, sometimes all of this in a single song. All four band members brought a lot to it: a special drum sound, a screeching, wailing, minimalist guitar, Black Francis’s (the lead singer’s) utter conviction in his own words, and Kim Deal… well, I think most Pixies fans have been at least slightly in love with her down-home brilliance. I never got to see them live before last night, but I listened to their albums over and over and saw the Breeders (the band Kim founded) many times, and even contributed lyrics to their song “Head to Toe.” Back to the Pixies: Black Francis broke up the band in 1993. They reunited in 2003; Deal left the band in 2013.
So yes, this was to be my first Pixies concert, more than thirty years after first hearing them. I got out the door and onto my bike and zipped off to the train station. Getting to Budapest Park from Szolnok is a bit of a challenge when you’re in a hurry. I took the train to the Keleti station, took the M4 metro from there to Kálvin tér, switched from there to the M3, which I took out to Népliget, and walked from there (20-30 minutes) to Budapest Park. Fortunately they started about ten minutes after the announced time. I had missed the opening band, but no matter. The Pixies took the stage and plunged right in with “Gouge Away.” It gave me a strange thrill to be hearing them after so many years, among thousands of cheering, dancing fans. The terrace was less crowded than the ground level, and the people around me were having a great time. Many of them knew the lyrics.
I knew all the songs from their albums through Trompe le Monde (1991) and none of their later songs. The earlier songs included (in no particular order) “Caribou,” “Ed Is Dead,” “Bone Machine,” “Break My Body,” “Gigantic,” “Where Is My Mind,” “Velouria,” “UMass,” “Planet of Sound,” “Subbacultcha,” “Debaser,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “Here Comes Your Man,” and “Hey.” Actually, I’m not entirely sure that they played “Hey”; my memory might have interpolated it. There’s some catching up to be done, though not an awful lot (it has been quipped that the Pixies have become a Pixies cover band—slightly true, but not really justified, as they are still releasing new albums). I love their “new” bassist, Paz Lechantin, who first joined them as a touring bassist and became a permanent member of the band in 2016. She’s a tremendous musician, and it’s clear that she honors the legacy of Kim Deal while bringing herself to the songs.
I remember trying (here and there) to introduce people in Kyrgyzstan to the Pixies back in 1993. One couple, who became friends with me, took a liking to the songs; I remember walking with them late at night in downtown Bishkek, drinking warm champagne, and talking about all sorts of things. They were joyous that such music existed.
That is what the Pixies left with me, both thirty years ago and last night: the music itself, the knowledge that it is possible, and the many different times and places of listening, and friendships formed through that. And along with it, who knows what else. I listen to different music today, I think of music differently today, but something has carried on from that era, and something has been let go.
Note: Officially the band is “Pixies,” not “The Pixies.” But everyone I know says “the Pixies,” including top-level Pixies connoisseurs. In the context of a sentence, “Pixies” without the “the” sounds strange.
Take Away the Takeaway 