Live Photos + Review: Weezer and Pixies at Austin360 Amphitheater

When you’ve got two influentially essential rock bands co-headlining a concert, it’s difficult to qualify one as an “opener,” especially in the case of Pixies playing before Weezer. During Saturday’s performance at Austin360 Amphitheater – the fifth stop of the groups’ 29-date U.S. jaunt – the Boston-bred quartet powered through 24 numbers, outplaying their slightly younger tour mates by six songs.­
Pixies achieved that in part by eschewing any stage banter or pauses between tunes, many of them geared toward their 2-minute-average, punk-oriented stylings (“Um Chagga Lagga,” “Isla De Encanta,” “Crackity Jones”). Yet, despite no more than the occasional exchange of satisfied grins, their overall setlist choices – heavy doses of Surfer Rosa/Doolittle – suggested a level of comfort and enjoyment in the mold they’ve come to embody 32 years into their career.
The main difference these days is industry-all-star bassist Paz Lenchantin, who officially replaced founding member Kim Deal when she took up permanent duties on 2016’s Head Carrier. It was particularly telling that – in addition to her spotlight from that latest album, “All I Think About Now” – Lenchantin dusted off and spearheaded “Gigantic,” which Pixies haven’t showcased since Deal’s last run with the band in 2011.
Pixies
Weezer likewise struck a balance of the hit singles and some atypical jams to assert the timelessness of their 24-year-spanning songbook. As it’s normally reserved for end-of-set, “Buddy Holly” as an opener was the first surprise; donning a sweater vest, a tie, and backdropped by a set production emulating the song’s Happy Days-inspired music video, frontman Rivers Cuomo cheerily led the quartet through that first streamer-blasted anthem, then maintained momentum with a sequence of singalong-worthy superhits (“Beverly Hills” > “Hash Pipe” > “Undone – The Sweater Song” > “Pork and Beans” > “Perfect Situation”).
Then it was on to deeper cuts off the Blue Album and Pinkerton – “My Name is Jonas” > “El Scorcho” with altered lyrics (“I asked you to go the Pixies concert”) > “No One Else” > “In the Garage” – before a fuzzed-up rendition of the Turtles’ classic “Happy Together,” which featured a seamlessly inserted snippet of Green Day’s “Longview,” followed by Cuomo solo-acoustic offerings (on a B-stage at soundboard) of “Island in the Sun” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall.” The evening’s crowning cover, however, arrived after the only featured new song, "Feels Like Summer," as the main set closer – who’d have predicted that a Twitter meme account pleading with the band to take on Toto’s “Africa” would manifest as one of the most galvanic moments of Weezer’s show?
Even bigger bonus: the tour debut and first full-band performance since 2015 of Blue Album B-side “Susanne,” the perfect primer for the all-in finale of “Say It Ain’t So,” complete with sparks-showered coda snippet of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." Cue =w= hands everywhere.
Weezer

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Last updated: 28 Mar 2024, 11:31 Etc/UTC