Pixies and Weezer Rock Sacramento
It is nice that “real” musicians can also be as giddy or humble in front of their musical heroes and it’s even nicer when bands like the Rolling Stones invite their blues heroes to join them on stage, but it’s even better when you join your musical heroes for a co-headlining tour across the country and that’s what we had last Tuesday night at the Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento where Weezer were joined by their musical inspiration and heroes, The Pixies.
The show was opened by English band Basement who rewarded those brave music fans who showed up early with an energetic performance that was well received by the sparse audience that early in the evening.
At 7:45, the lights dimmed and, on the stage, appeared the alternative rock gods, Pixies, who as usual, without much fanfare, stuck to the business of playing some amazing music with a 21-song set.
It was obvious that the band was in good spirits with a Black Francis in black shades, who for someone who never cared about being “cool”, looked and acted very cool and in control of that stage while Joey Santiago slashed through those power chords while David Lovering on drums kept the energy up and new band member, Paz Lenchantin on bass kept the whole thing together and all that synergy and good vibes transcended into the audience who celebrated every song.
For the hardcore fans who follow the band from show to show, it is very satisfying not knowing what the band is going to play as The Pixies do not have a regular set list and change it from show to show and it is always refreshing to be surprised, but the more casual fans were not denied either as they did play some of their most popular songs like “Where Is My Mind?”, “Here Comes Your Man”, “Wave of Mutilation” and others and closing with “Gigantic”.
Weezer opened the show with the band members dressed up in barber shop clothes in the pit in front of the stage with a barber shop quarter version of “Beverly Hills” and while the “Happy Days” theme played, the band removed their barber shop gear and kicked off the main part of the show with a ruckus version of “Buddy Holly”.
I guess we could say that this was an all greatest hits show if we include the various covers they played tonight which included Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Want To Rule The World”, Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”, The Turtles’ “Happy Together” with a snippet of Green Day’s “Longview”, Jane’s Addiction “Up The Beach”, TLC’s “No Scrubs” and of course, the song that has brought Weezer back to the mainstream, Toto’s “Africa”.
I normally have a “thing” about cover bands that I dislike, but I love cover songs if the artists put their own spin on it, and Weezer definitely did, they had that certain “je ne sais quoi”, especially when they are played live.
As for their songs, there was no shortage of hits, besides the already mentioned “Buddy Holly” we had “Island In The Sun”, “Undone - The Sweater Song”, the regular version of “Beverly Hills” and “Hash Pipe” among others.and closing with a sing along of “Say It Ain’t So”.
All in all, it was a great night of music which left the thousands of fans satisfied and we just hope that more shows like this keep coming to Sacramento.