Pixies at the Roundhouse review: the wild-eyed spirit and disruptive energy remains undimmed

All meat, no fat but plenty of voodoo bones: as far as a Pixies set goes, there are certain things you can come to expect from the surreal rock legends. There’ll be no ‘banter’ – the closest we got to that last night, or indeed ever, came via the opening “Hey!” that introduced the classic song of the same name from the band’s Doolittle album. But instead we got a lean, mean run through one of the most fertile canons in the game; packing in 30-plus songs to their two-hour set, you can’t complain that a Pixies gig is bad value for money.

Where recent tours have found Black Francis and his band fully leaning into the old favourites, however, this time they went heavy on recent album Doggerel. Playing the first of two long-sold out nights at Camden’s Roundhouse, these shows were pretty intimate fan gatherings for them; though there were still dips in the energy despite the unequivocal quality of their latter career material.

Strolling onto the stage in a pair of sunglasses that he kept on throughout, the frontman led his band through a first act that, aside from an early run through of Here Comes Your Man (a song they’ve always famously hated), drew largely from their last decade. That’s far from an implied negative – Death Horizon jangled along with a jaunty morbidity while Get Simulated showcased Black’s creeping rasp of a vocal in delightfully villainous fashion. But nonetheless, it wasn’t until the lights bathed the band in green and they began a prolonged intro to Gouge Away that the gathered crowd started to loosen their limbs.

The set was one that revved up then pulled back. A run of classics (Caribou, Gouge Away, Isla de Encanta) begat another trio of newbies; throughout, the quartet were phenomenally tight, the visceral bite that’s always lain at their heart as sharp and impressively unweakened as ever, yet it felt like the momentum was somewhat off. Even their finale, in which crowd favourite Where Is My Mind? gave way to a closing Winterlong (a long-played cover of the Neil Young original) felt like a strange choice.

Pacing aside, however, nearly 35 years on from their debut it’s quite astonishing how little the band’s wild-eyed spirit and central disruptive energy has abated in that time. Pixies are a heritage act with more snarl and spark than most artists a third of their age; still able to conjure up a slice of perfectly controlled mania that no-one’s really held a candle to since. Even a B-squad set of theirs is better most could hope for on their A-game. Contrary and brilliant, Pixies have earned the right to play whatever the hell they like.

Roundhouse, March 21; roundhouse.org.uk