“uh is the sound”

A little late but here’s the promised Pixies in B’more review:

After dinner at Amicci’s in Little Italy (good portions of great food, but weird fraction menu which I think is silly) we took in some old Italian couples playing Bocce Ball on a pristine city sponsored bocce court to kill some time. The atmosphere was surreal – watching old men sipping beer from plastic cups, cursing in Italian, on this beautiful and quiet tree-lined court not five minutes away from the Inner Harbor bustle. It reminded me of growing up in South Jersey and hanging out with my long dead grand-pop Chaz and all his Italian cronies outside the Garden State Race Track. Ah my youth.

We made it over to SONAR in the middle of opening act Lake Trout's set. I have wanted to check out SONAR ever since I first heard about it last spring and so being unenthusiastic with Lake Trout's musical stylings my friend and I decided to scope out the rest of the club.

SONAR is a very cool warehouse style club with one large concert hall and two nice-sized rooms that serve as bars and DJ rooms. Both bars are very well stocked and stylish. Which was a surprise compared to the make-shift bar in the main-room. During and after concerts, the two smaller rooms open up as a nightclub which concert patrons get free access too.

The Pixies played to a massive (over-capacity I'd guess) crowd. People were packed in every nook and cranny of the place. Which was expected at SONAR when hosting a super-group.

The Pixies set began slow and intimate steadily building energy through the night to finally explode in a fiery storm of guitar and vocal passion. Where Pixies' stadium set-lists are like an artillery attack, this rare club show set-list was more like the band and the audience were having sex. In all a much more intimate Pixies experience however I'm not holding my breath for Kim Deal to call me sometime.

Originally published on October 4, 2005.