Charity Appearance

[FredHuggins]

I generally agree with Jon's review, though I didn't think Michael Penn was THAT bad.

As for Jon's complaints about the fans - if I may offer a different perspective...

The Pixies write unique music. Unique music = not to everyone's tastes.

We didn't actually KNOW FOR SURE it would be archived. We'd just heard that as a rumor. What if it wasn't? We had to stay up to see it live, just in case. Everyone knew the Black Francis set didn't begin until 11:20, but those who weren't such big Pixies fans (and as much as I love the Pixies, the new-to-me stuff I heard last night frankly didn't impress me much) were bugged at having to wait an additional hour and a half for the very reason we tuned in in the first place. Frank Black might be FRANK BLACK to you, but if you're unfamiliar with the reason for capitalization, then yeah, he's just some bald guy droning on and on, keeping you from your precious Al. Even the finest cheese platter sucks for the lactose-intolerant.

The way Al's appearance was prominently promoted in every event description I read, one would be forgiven for assuming he might do an entire set. Same with Flea, now that I think about it. To advertise Al's presence THAT MUCH when he's only doing three minutes borders on the disingenuous (particularly if, as you say, he was waiting in the wings the whole time, and maybe COULD'VE joined in if he'd been asked). I'm sure the hardcore Flea fans out there were equally annoyed.

My advice, Jon, is don't take the screaming smurfholes so personally. Try not to mistake their annoyance as a personal threat to your taste, or you risk becoming a screaming smurfhole yourself. I doubt anybody who'd get annoyed at sitting through 90 minutes of Pixies music even CARES about the opinions of a hardcore Pixies fan, so why should you care what they think?

[Wizzerkat]

Fred, you're the bee's knees!

I was going to be up late anyway, so that did not bother me at all. Waiting didn't bother me hugely either. I did not expect a set from Al n was I disappointed that it was not more than one song, but it seemed like a short song to me at the time so I was kind of bummed to be honest.

I had really only listened to classic rock/70's and 80's stuff in recent years (until rad Al fandom kicked in and I expanded) so I honestly had not heard of the Pixies and never realized he was FRANK BLACK or some legend. I did realize it was HIS show, though, so I understood he would be on longer(and I like his solo stuff either way).