Pixies in Spokane, WA, April 24, 2004

With reformation confirmed, Pixies-mania in early ‘04 was pretty ridiculous, as you may recall. The very first tour skipped most major cities, including Seattle and Portland. I tried to buy tix to stop #8 or #9, the two shows at the Commodore in Vancouver, BC, the second they went on sale, but got no love, then “sold-out” at about minute #3; so I did the same thing the next week for stop #10 at the Big Easy in Spokane, WA – same deal - busy signal / no computer response, then when I did get through, “sold-out.“ So Meagan asked around and not only got us tix, but somehow scored free VIP tix! When we rolled into Spokane (a four hour drive from my Seattle home) that April '04 afternoon, there were already tons of fans lining up or milling about around the club for the night’s show. We fell into that hype and went early to see what was up - we could not go all the way in, but with our VIP tix we got access to this little lounge up some stairs with viewing holes along the side looking down on the showroom - out walk the Pixies who sound-check by playing “Velouria” start-to-finish to the empty room - unreal. Then we got to go into the club a couple minutes before the plebeians were let in, so Meag and I positioned ourselves at the very front slightly stage left (Meagan hates the icky-sweaty-crowdedness in the front of packed shows and would not do this for any other band). The club filled in to the gils, the openers were tolerable, and everyone had a mega-cow when the Pixies walked out, and we found ourselves halfway between Charles and Kim. For the first song they screwed-up “Subbaculcha,” stopped playing, and left the stage; returning about 5 seconds later (such charmers – I think maybe they staged the mess-up – either way, I loved it) to bang through that song perfectly and tons more songs with massive beauty and ferocity (+ perfect sound!), and massive appreciation from the seemingly over-sold-out crowd. They played most of Surfer Rosa, most of Doolittle, and many of their other great songs during a spectular set lasting just under two hours. We got to see every facial expression of Kim and hear off-mic banter from our position. Every time they’d start a song, we’d be like “I freaking LOVE this song!” And the crowd would roar super loudly like that song was some big mega-hit or something – every freaking song. I think everyone in the room felt like the luckiest person on Earth that night. Pixies looked dumbfounded that we loved them so much. Kim could not stop smiling. It was sublime. Greatest Band Ever, I think, maybe - Meagan thinks for sure.