Post-Noise Pop: Pixies, Weezer, and the Heyday of Alternative Rock
The first concert I ever went to was a Bad Religion show on their New America tour while they were supporting Blink-182 back in 2000. It was also the last large-venue show I had ever attended. I remember at the time a cousin of mine was working security at the venue, and so I had been convinced I’d get backstage due to my youthful “connections.” This caused great envy to my classmates at the time despite it never coming through. I also remember not having the best time at the show, which colored my perception of such shows. I thereafter deferred to smaller venues in my teens to places like State Theatre and Jannus Landing with the occasional Vinoy Park festival.
I was therefore caught off guard by the security measures in place at MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater for the Pixies and Weezer show. I panicked a bit while I walked up to the gates with my bag full of writerly equipment at the sight of military personnel with assault rifles. I had only previously been familiar with the casual pat-down by security into those smaller venues with the most rigorous ever having been for a Mindless Self Indulgence show at the now burnt-down Amphitheater night club in Ybor City (not to be confused with the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater).
Given my anxiety and complete lack of will to go through the bag line of security, I went back to my car to drop off everything I could afford to leave behind and stuffed my pockets with the essentials – notepad, pen, audio recorder, cigarettes, keys, wallet, and lighter. Not thinking my cigarettes contained metal caused a problem since I did not take them out of my pocket when they passed the wand over me. Apparently, their wands are so sensitive that even the foil in a cigarette pack is enough to set them off – live and learn.
I got there about an hour before the opening act and so found a place to sit and try to cool down. It was at this point that I noticed the generational gap between the bands. Weezer, despite having been around since the early 1990s, seems to attract a much younger crowd. I sat next to a group of teens who consequently referred to Pixies as “oldies,” despite them having only about ten years on Weezer. This, of course, would be a substantial difference in terms of the progression of music except for the fact that Weezer has been around for almost thirty years themselves.
Pixies have always been hard to place, which is why I felt that the line-up for this show was refreshingly well-orchestrated. Fans of Pixies can’t help but recall the ill-fated tour they had opening large venues for U2 back in the ’90s, after which the band fell apart. They exist in this limbo area of influences and, at least in the US, were devoid of what today we would consider “hits.” They were not MTV darlings, and so most of what later generations of fans came to know of them is from cultural appropriations of their sound. Despite having been a huge influence on most later music (Kurt Cobain notoriously referred to Nirvana as “a Pixies cover band”), they have existed as something of a mythological creature of which few people were ever really fans while they were touring, and it can be argued the whole genre of which Weezer takes part would not have been possible were it not for them.
I have always considered it disrespectful to not show up for the opening band. True, it is often the case that such openers are an ill fit for the show, or they are merely hangers-on for a label or promoter of the larger acts that get slipped on for hokey reasons. This was not the case for The Wombats. Their sound was closer in tone to Weezer, but when they did away with some of the frills of the synth playing their rawer beats contained hints of the jangle/surfer pop of Pixies, which offered a tight octane-fueled performance, despite the sweltering heat, to open the show.
The Wombats are a multi-instrumental trio from England with a bassist who seemed to pogo non-stop around the large stage, helping to diminish the effect of being dwarfed by the size of the stage itself. If I were to offer a critique of them, though, they don’t have the most controversial of sounds. Compared to Black Francis’ Spanglish and surrealist lyricism and Cuomo’s knack for story telling in his songs, theirs seemed to play it a little too safe. They are great performers, though, and for their final song they wooed the crowd when their singer and bassist ditched their instruments and grabbed their mics to sing the closing chorus to the beat of the drum.
The impression I got from the crowd is that not many were there for Pixies. However, by the end of their set they were receiving a standing ovation and surely won over new converts. The set started off a little stiff, with Black Francis holding off a bit on the verse of “U-Mass,” and the next few songs came off as rehearsed. The on-stage tension between Black Francis and Kim Deal is legendary, so I was a bit wary of Deal’s replacement, Paz Lenchantin. Sonically speaking, the songs were incredible to hear live, and Paz was not shy when it came to Kim’s iconic vocals. There was something missing in the overall arrangement, though.
Compared to The Wombats’ high-energy performance, I was a little disappointed in the stiff playing of Pixies, which made me joke to myself whether they would end up playing their song “Tame” (which is anything but). The Pixies have always been noted for their recordings, and given that most people only know their music from those, they seemed to be trying too hard to match the quirks which makes them, well, less like quirks. However, when they broke into “Hey” halfway through their set, the crowd finally lit up, and you could feel the band loosening up as well.
The highlight of their performance was when Black switched to acoustic and they jammed out to “Vamos,” extending the twisting structures and distorted playing of Santiago. This was the closest they got to their fabled fuckery on stage. To the immense pleasure of the crowd, they immediately transitioned into “Where is My Mind.” By this time the crowd seemed sold to me, and they were able to go on through past hits like “Velouria,” “Ed is Dead,” and, yes, they also played “Tame.” I was finally sold on Paz with her belting out of the melody to “Debaser.”
Although Weezer were not the biggest draw for me, they offered a phenomenal performance and were duly deserving of the headlining spot. The main drawback was that the performance was mainly a “best of,” and the crowd screamed the lyrics along with Cuomo the entire time, which at times drowned out Cuomo himself. The performance kicked off with “Buddy Holly,” and by the second song security was already scouring my section for the source of wafting drafts of pot. During the first three songs, our photographer inadvertently cast a beach ball back into the crowd after it came into his area which subsequently was sent careening into Cuomo’s face, which he thankfully took in stride but sent a bouncer haranguing my photographer.
There must be something constraining to headline a show after such a long career of iconic hits. With all the fans looking to have their expectations met, often from studio recordings, it leaves little wiggle room for the artists to have fun with the material. This was the evident contrast between Pixies and Weezer. Although Pixies started off stiff, you could hear the variations that make a live performance worth seeing. Cuomo did a great job working the stage, even going off stage to the PA to perform “Island in the Sun” and “Wonderwall” (arguably our generation’s “Free Bird”) acoustically after having taken a scooter around security into the crowd.
The one area where they did have some freedom was in their mash-up of the Turtles’ “Happy Together” with Green Day’s “Longview.” Echoing their pop-punk roots, this was a welcome throwback, and, both being culturally iconic songs, the crowd continued to sing along. And then, of course, Cuomo stated that the band would “be remiss” were they not to fulfill a certain expectation – Toto’s “Africa.” I have to respect a band that doubles down on a meme. It is such antics that keep Weezer relevant and garnering such a large and devoted fanbase.
Rock as a relevant genre is arguably in decline. Although only separated by about ten years, Pixies and Weezer represent two ends of the heyday of alternative garage bands. Pixies came out post-punk without quite fitting into the commercialized grunge scene which opened the door to pop-punk mega-stars like Green Day and Blink-182. Alternative rock consequently held the mantle of album sales up through the indie and emo days of the mid-2000s which Weezer comfortably coasted between throughout their career. Since then, however, the scene struggles to provide a coherent message that succeeds in subverting its commercialization. Fortunately, such talents as Black Francis and Rivers Cuomo continue to tour and inspire future generations to hopefully reignite a genre which once offered rebellion but now seems to only offer a saleable image – an ersatz rejection which is in actuality an acceptance of what’s already been done.
