gouge away
—There must be some country where we could live well off our current fortunes.
—Hmm...
—Of course in your case, that would be the country where minus is plus.
—That's it! We're moving to Opposite Land!
Guess what we did last night! If you said "saw the Pixies," you are mostly right. "Saw" is a slight stretch, only because we didn't actually have tickets and therefore camped out on a hill directly behind the amphitheater. If you stood and carefully negotiated your position vis-à-vis the trees, you could kind of see what was happening on stage; but under any circumstances the hill provided excellent access to the sound and light show. We were certainly closer to the Pixies than I was to, say, U2 at the PopMart stadium.
Before the show I asked the rock gods for "Subbacultcha," and they delivered! Otherwise the set was heavy on material from Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa, and Doolittle; they knew what we wanted. We got both the album and U.K. surf versions of "Wave of Mutilation," and Kim sang a weird, short song about heaven. I don't know if it was a cover I should have caught, or a little ditty she just made up backstage, or what. Frank's voice certainly does not sound as it used to—he couldn't manage quite as many of the requisite high-register screams as formerly, but he worked around it. At any rate, Joey Santiago hasn't forgotten his amp settings. The lead guitar sounded exactly as it does on the records: trebly, scratchy, cranked way up above everything. As it should be. (Geeky rig here.) I tend to forget how much of rock music simply involves finding the right combination of dials, and then riding those dials to heaven.
