La La Love You

Two weeks ago I travelled to Hyde Park for the enormo Pearl Jam/Pixies gig which has been delayed for two years due to you-know-what. I met up with my best brother Mark and my best friend Matthew on a gorgeous scorching day. I knew what to expect having seen the Stones there ten years previously. It’s not so much a gig as more of an event. We grabbed some beers, caught up and mouched to a spot to watch Pixies at the allotted time. We were so far away from the band that we were basically just about in the same county as Pixies, and we then proceeded to shout their songs back at them, they closed the set with ‘Debaser’ to which I did some drunk enthusiastic dancing.

Now, it wasn’t the best Pixies gig I’ve ever seen, hell, it wasn’t even the best Pixies gig I’ve seen this year, but it was the first Pixies gig I’ve seen with these two bozos for ten years (?). Pixies ain’t the cult band they were back in the day, but they’re still our band. It dawned on me while watching then on that beautiful July evening just how much history the three of us have together with this band, and how much they mean to us. The first time we saw them together was at Gloucester Leisure Centre in 1990 on the Bossonova tour and it still stands as my favourite gig of all time heightened by the shock of the new and Joey Santiago’s guitar intro on ‘Rock Music’. We were heart broken when they split up first time round then the three of us were elated when they reformed. Pixies are a heavily touring band these days, so it’s sometimes difficult to remember the time when it seemed impossible that we would ever see them again. The sheer joy of us three getting to see them again at Brixton Academy in 2004. We didn’t know how long the comeback would last but we were determined to enjoy every minute.

At the wend of the Hyde Park gig we pin balled into the night as my brother tried to negotiate a fee with a Tuk Tick cyclist to take us back to our tube stop. Pixies have evolved as we’ve grown older. As various jobs, ex wives and family dramas have come and gone the band have been there. We’ve seen them together and apart many times over the years but the Hyde Park gig felt special, in the sunlight watching the band I love with two of the people I love most in the world. A shinny, messy drunken day which was whole buckets of fun, and those are the best kind.