Pixies - Photo by Annie Lesser

This past Saturday, the Pixies played a show for its beloved fans at Los Angeles’ Music Box. It was a special “La La Love You” show that the Pixies had informed its fans about via an email to those subscribed for Pixies updates. The show sold out in 20 minutes for the 1,300-capacity venue. Chatty and cheerful bassist/vocalist Kim Deal kept asking audience members if they had gotten the email or not.
 
Despite being on the Doolittle tour, the Pixies did not play songs exclusively from the album. In fact the band started out the set by declaring, “Hello, we’re the Pixies, and we’re gonna play a really long time—super long! Our setlist is two pages long!” The show opened with “Bone Machine,” but the Pixies screwed up within the first few bars causing Deal to break down laughing. “I don’t know what happened. We could start with a different song I suppose,” she giggled before her bandmates jumped straight into “U-Mass.” After successfully finishing, the band boasted, “One down,” before playing 29 more songs. The set included hits like “Here Comes Your Man” and “Monkey Gone To Heaven,” but it also had some deeper cuts such as “Crackity Jones.”
 
Partway through the set the band played “Dead.” Frank Black dryly stated, “My family was concerned after [my grandfather] died, [the song] was about him.” Banter kept on coming throughout the show. At one point audience members shouted, “Fuck you, Frank!” and when they tried to retract their words, Black calmly stated, “Let’s just keep it ‘fuck you, Frank, and fuck you too!’” Which prompted people to scream, “Fuck you, Kim!” as well as, “Fuck you, music!” The band introduced “La La Love You” by having guitarist Joey Santiago dedicate the song to all the ladies. The Pixies bowed after playing “Into The White.” When people called for an encore the band started discussing what it should play next, but audience members had the answer, chanting “Where Is My Mind?” until Kim started in on her haunting “OOOoooh.” After playing the request the Pixies did “Gigantic,” finishing off the almost two-hour show.
 
Photos by Annie Lesser.