(The) Pixies

I'm not a fan of the big gig. There have been a couple of astounding exceptions to this - Radiohead at South Park in 2001, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Glastonbury, 1998 - but for the most part my large gig experiences have been miserable. When The Cure played Wembley Arena, on their Disintegration tour, that was the first time I left a gig early. When U2 played Roundhay Park, I lay on the grass, hundreds of yards from the stage, and wished I was at home listening on the radio.

Well, that's all right, you might think, just don't go to any big gigs. And that is, admittedly, a solution of sorts but what about if I want to see, say, Elbow? Or Portishead? Or, indeed, The Pixies? In this last case, it transpires that the answer is to have known John Watton for twenty-five years such that when he wins a pair of tickets to see The Pixies at Maida Vale, playing live for Radio 6, he DMs you to ask if you'd like to accompany him.

We meet at the BBC at 5pm and the fact that I am dressed in a suit and a tie sets me slightly at odds with the rest of the queue, with its accompanying optimist, who, dressed in his 'Debaser' t-shirt, is wandering up and down asking whether anyone has a spare ticket. If this seems unlikely at the time, it is retrospectively hopeless as we find out later that 37,000 people applied for the 200 tickets.

We queue and BBC bodies come along to check our 'tickets' (printed emails), which they then adorn with a numbered sticker. Later on, they come back to put strips around our wrists. Finally we descend into the bowels of the studio where, on account of the fact that I have a bag, I am taken to one side. I open my bag, revealing clothes for the following day and my washbag, which remains unopened.

"Can I see your house keys, please?"
"My house keys? Yeah, sure."
The house keys are viewed and then I put them back in my pocket.
"Uh, why did you want to see my house keys?"
"In case you had a penknife on them. Some people do, you know."
I wonder whether to mention the penknife in my pocket but decide against it.

On the way into the studio we are given a small box that says The Pixies on it and inside are some plectra, which is nice, if slightly bewildering.

The band take the stage. They are minus founder member Kim Deal, who has joined them for the reunion tours but who has now left to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the brilliant album 'Last Splash' by her band, The Breeders. In her stead there is another lady bassist, who I later discover is one Kim Shattuck, formerly of The Muffs. At least that's what Wikipedia says. There is a little more hanging around until at six o'clock, when Steve Lamacq comes onto the stage to announce the band to the radio audience and then the gig commences.

If you don't know The Pixies, I'm not sure I can describe them particularly well but they were a huge influence on Nirvana; are often noted for the contrasting loud and quiet bits of their songs (there is a great film about them called 'loudQUIETloud'); they have a song my dad would like; and they wrote one of my favourite songs ever, which, sadly, they don't play this evening.

The sound is great, as are the band, and it's a proper treat to be so close to a band of such stature, a group of musicians who have had such a massive influence on the popular music that I love. I am hugely grateful to John for taking me along. And, as we were only a couple of rows back, I managed to get some half decent shots of Black Francis, Joey Santiago, Dave Lovering and Kim Shattuck.

Between song banter was not in abundance, although Black Francis did at one point say the the band was *either* Pixies or The Pixies "it doesn't really matter", which I liked, mainly because it's something I've had a small worry about for many years. The hour flew by - there's a setlist here - and then Steve Lamacq returned to thank the band and to end the show. The band did hang around, though, to record a song for Jo Whiley's new programme. Actually, I really loved this last track, which I didn't recognise and which wasn't included on the setlist. (If anyone can help, please do!)

Finally, if you want to see the gig, it says on the BBC website that "From Friday 11 October you'll be able to watch Pixies In Concert at Maida Vale on the BBC Red Button and Online. All you need to do is press "Red" on any BBC channel or go to the Red Button channel on digital TV sets." That's if you have a telly :-)