No bullshit. Just brilliance.

The Pixies are the whores of the rock world.

They give you what you want, without respite, without you even knowing what it is that you want or have missed, and leave you feeling satisfied. I didn't even know what exactly I was missing until I got it again. Flamenco Indie-Punk surf anthems with lashings of aliens, choruses of whores, and a handy side order of incest. And it takes you right back.

For some of us this is nostalgia for an era that never existed, at least not for us. Kind of like a history lesson, like seeing The Velvet Underground or The Beatles or something. For others - those who hair turned into stomach fat, barging down the front when they play something off Bossa Nova and running back to the bar after 20 minutes - it's like seeing a reformed, fat, balding Sex Pistols. Fat, forty, and back.

(and my God, did I tell you, The Pixies have the fittest female fans I've ever seen).

So we get it all. Frank Black, your fat white-trash uncle who happens to be in the coolest band in the world : The very Buddha of Indie. His own walking Planet-sized Planet Of Sound. And Kim Deal. Who, despite being 40, you would. You know you would : the perpetual, eternal indie kid. Joey Santiago, a cross between the Dalai Llama and Dave Navarro. The only man who I've ever seen play a guitar solo whilst simultaneously smoking a fag and playing the drums. He just puts his guitar on a stand, smokes a fag and jokes with Frank Black, and treads on his wah-wah pedal every once in a while. He makes it look so easy. And then he plays the guitar with a drum stick.

And then there's Dave Lovering. The mysterious, otherworldly scientist of rock. Playing in a white lab coat. I haven't even mentioned the support : The Dave Lovering magic show, a cross between Standup comedy and the weirdest episode of Open University you've ever seen. Dave, armed merely with the power of science and a Meteorite, manages to do the weirdest things to gherkins - making them illuminate like lightbulbs using just two forks, power neon striplights using some baffling glowing red thing that he attaches to his forehead that makes his skin smoke, harnessing the power of a Meteorite to astound - and blow things up - and always choosing pretty volunteers from the crowd. And getting their phone numbers.

La la love you, pretty baby.

Oh, and the songs. I can't remember what they played, or in what order. But they played them all. (Aside, possibly from "Allison" and "Head On"), Everything you wanted to hear (and if you don't know what they sound like, what exactly are you doing here?).

And then there's the crowd, even right at the end, it's a pulsating, undulating mass of rabid middle-class pogoing, not even tired, or gasping for breath, or any of the things that people tend to do when Your Favourite Indie Band TM reforms for a shedload of cash. And 4,000 people yelling along to incoherent screamed Spanish in things like "Subbacultha". And there's no sign of Uriah hitting the crapper.

And there's "Where Is My Mind". And finally "Into the White", the venue lit up in house lights, filled with smoke and dry ice and a storm of white and sound and feedback. And it's fabulous. Oh boy Oh boy. The Pixies are back. They make me feel like a teenager in love. Like I'm young again.

The Pixies are my very own rock UFO, abducting us to some weird other dimension. Take me on the mothership. I ain't ever coming back.

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