The Harlem Globetrotters
Sunday, Mar 14 3:00p
The Harlem Globetrotters
Asheville Civic Center
Asheville
NC
87 Haywood St.
Asheville Bravo: Wall To Wall Williams
PIXIES
After nearly 40 sold out shows on three continents since Fall, 2009, The Pixies are bringing The Doolittle Tour back to the U.S.A. The 13-city trek kicks off on September 7 at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia and will extend the 20th anniversary celebration of the release of the band's classic 1989 album, Doolittle. All of the shows will be recorded and the CDs will be made available immediately after every show at the band's merch table; all live CDs can also be ordered at www.doolittlelive.com.
After disbanding in 1993 and essentially taking the "web years" off, the Pixies have quietly begun using the Internet to communicate directly with fans. This week, the band is playing the two sold-out shows in London for which the band is the sole promoter and ticketing company, offering tickets only to those on the band's email list, and soliciting set list ideas via email.
On this tour, the Pixies - Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering - will perform all of the songs from Doolittle and its related B-sides, "Weird at My School," "Dancing the Manta Ray," and "Bailey's Walk" among them. Doolittle, the band's third album and the first to chart on Billboard's album charts, includes classics such as "Debaser," "Wave of Mutilation," "Here Comes Your Man," "Hey," and "Gouge Away."
An imaginative cinematic production has been created for The Doolittle Tour. Designed by long-time Pixies lighting designer Myles Mangino and designer Paul Normandale, the set features four huge, undulating, eyeball-like spheres flown just below the lighting rig and are part of the concert's light show. Filmmakers Judy Jacobs, Tom Winkler, Brent Felix and Melinda Tupling were brought on board to create 11 films especially for the production. The films are projected onto a massive backdrop video screen to accompany 12 of the 21 songs that comprise the show.
As an example, visuals accompanying the song "Debaser" are from a compilation titled "Forbidden Images." The hauntingly beautiful black and white footage from the 1920s depicts the beginning of the women's rights movement, showing women's exuberant playfulness, femininity and sensuality. The footage, a little too progressive for its time period, was originally banned from theaters.
For "Here Comes Your Man," a four-way split screen displays close up images of the band members dancing along to the song; "I Bleed" sees blood dripping down the screen in time to the music; "Hey" features hand-drawn animation of the song's lyrics by Hollywood animator Tom Winkler; clouds, black holes, and Mankind's arrogance destroying the Earth are the focus for "Monkey Gone to Heaven," while "La La Love You" is a humorous animated piece starring hearts with legs.
The Doolittle Tour launched on September 30, 2009 in Dublin, Ireland, and played sold-out shows everywhere - Scotland, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and to 20,000 fans over four nights in London. It then came to America last November, playing multiple-night sell-outs from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York, and then in March, 2010 sold-out shows were performed in five Australian cities. The tour received five-star reviews in the [London] Times, the Guardian and the Independent, and, according to one U.S. alt/weekly, "The Pixies continue to WOW."
The Boston-formed Pixies have been acclaimed as the most influential pioneering band of the late '80s alt/rock movement. Their five studio releases and six years together effectively blazed the path for groups like Nirvana, Radiohead, and Pearl Jam to rise to superstardom. They disbanded in 1993 and launched their reunion tour in April 2004 when virtually every single date sold out within minutes and fans traveled hundreds of miles to attend a show. In post-Pixies years, Black Francis has enjoyed a successful solo career as Frank Black, Kim Deal went on to form the Platinum-selling band the Breeders, Joey Santiago started the band The Martinis and has carved a career as a music composer for film and TV, and David Lovering performs as a magician and continues to drum.
The concert opens with the showing of the 1929 silent surrealist short film, "Un Chien Andalou," which was produced in France by Spanish director Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali, and provided the impetus for Black Francis in writing "Debaser."
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