Last night I drove up to Mesa to go see "The Pixies":http://www.4ad.com/artists/catalogue/pixies/ at "the ampitheatre":http://www.cityofmesa.org/cencntr/amp/amphitheatre.asp. It was my first time seeing them live, although I saw Frank Black and the Catholics a few years ago in Pittsburgh. The show was awesome... it was like listening to a greatest hits album live.

*Update:* If you want a rough approximation of what they sounded like, go "here":http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/4/22/37799.html for links to the mp3 and flac versions of an earlier show from the same tour.

Setlist follows:

Is She Wierd Subbacultcha Something Against You Tame Cactus River Euphrates Monkey Gone to Heaven No. 13 Baby Mr. Grieves Ed is Dead Planet of Sound Caribou My Velouria Gouge Away Isla de encanta Broken Face Wave of Mutilation Debaser U-Mass I Bleed Hey Gigantic Winterlong Here Comes Your Man Nimrod's Son Holiday Song Vamos (Encore) In Heaven Where is My Mind

They sounded fantastic, and good ol' Black Francis didn't even look as fat as he was a few years back. I guess they're doing a lot of touring, so that's a lot of good exercise right there.

Mesa itself is a strange place. It's a suburb of Phoenix, really... so it's all sprawl. Plus, they have a very high concentration of "Mormons":http://www.dooce.com/archives/nubbin/09_18_2004.html there, so it lends to the overall creepy atmosphere.