The Godfathers of Grunge, The Satans of The Surf Guitar, The Elder Statesmen of College Rock, Pixies rocked Pasadena so hard that the sun had to bow out and let Black Francis take over. David Bowie once remarked that Pixies should have been known as, “The Psychotic Beatles,” for their catchy basslines, surf-punk licks, earworm harmonies, and wall-of-sound melodies, but after their 1993 breakup, Pixies missed most of the alt-rock and post-rock they had heavily influenced (not to mention that their biggest fan, Kurt Cobain said that he directly ripped them off when he wrote “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and felt like he should have been in a Pixies cover band). Fans were left wondering if 2016’s Head Carrier was the band’s final chapter, however in January 2019, singer Black Francis announced that a forthcoming album would be released this coming September, entitled Beneath The Eyrie. Having replaced Kim Deal and Kim Shattuck permanently with Paz Lenchantin (of A Perfect Circle, Zwan and Queens Of The Stone Age fame), the reformed band belted out hit after hit, including “Gouge Away,” “Wave Of Mutilation,” “Hey!” “This Monkey’s Gone To Heaven,” “Caribou,” “Bone Machine,” “Debaser,” “Where Is My Mind?” and a rock-solid cover of The Jesus & Mary Chain’s “Head On,” closing the night with thousands of people “aahh-ooouuuing” to their monstrous hit, “Gigantic.” A lot of critics knock the band for their Deal-less lineup, something akin to a Bon Scott/David Lee Roth type of shakeup, but Lenchantin is a tremendous musician with an impressive sense of timing, structure and poise who absolutely complements the band. No one can mess with these rock pioneers. For now, if you want to see them again, you’ll have to catch them on their European tour, but hopefully we will get a stateside tour soon as well.
When Robert Smith announced earlier in March that The Cure was working on a new album slated for release this fall, the internet went berserk. He promised that the new album would include mostly “doom-and-gloom” tracks upwards of 10 minutes each. “It’s not really festival music…” he remarked, which left everyone wondering, what would make the list of songs for one of the world’s most diverse and accomplished indie-rock bands? Well, the answer is…everything. Performing a two and a half hour set, there was something for every die-hard fan, for every newbie, for every disgruntled Disintegration-or-bust caterwauler. Check out the full setlist here. Kicking off the night with “Plainsong” and “Pictures Of You” meant that the tearful waterworks started early. Careening through gorgeous hits like “Lovesong,” “Just Like Heaven,” “A Night Like This” and “Fascination Street” there were also some interspersed ‘90s tracks like “High,” “Burn” (from The Crow soundtrack) and “Never Enough” (apparently a huge inspiration for Lady Gaga, whom was in attendance and tweeted that the performance made her “come alive”). A seasoned veteran playing songs he wrote in his twenties, Smith launched into his post-punk trilogy, “Play For Today,” “A Forest” and “Primary,” sparking an outbreak of frenetic dancing across the Brookside Park field. Some of Smith’s more personal favorites like “Shake Dog Shake,” “Just One Kiss” and “39,” delighted an unexpecting audience. Closing the first set with “Disintegration,” the audience was not prepared for the show-stopping hit parade that they were about to embark on for an encore, diving straight into the nightmarishly danceable “Lullaby,” a sinewy and acoustic “The Caterpillar,” and synth-ballad, “The Walk.” Paying tribute to the festival’s other headliner, Smith even covered a small section of “Where Is My Mind?” before launching into “Friday I’m In Love,” rounding out the evening with “Close To Me,” “Why Can’t I Be You?” and finally finishing with their first single, “Boys Don’t Cry.” Very rarely do pop songs bring an entire crowd to tears, but I found myself and many others openly weeping to the lines, “…But I just keep on laughing/Hiding the tears in my eyes/’Cause boys don’t cry…” thinking about how much the world needs to hear this right now, how important it is not to bottle up your struggles and sorrows. As Robert Smith once offered, “sometimes when you’re feeling miserable and you listen to miserable music, it comforts you, because you feel there’s someone who understands. You’re not alone.”
Thank you to the Pasadena Daydream Festival for giving us the chance not to be alone.
Hopefully we will see you all next year.
