Where is my mind?

Well, to be accurate, my mind probably keeps drifting back to the Pixies gig last night at the Music Bowl.

Fanboy time... they were pretty awesome, probably one of the few remaining acts in my catalogue of favourite bands that I hadn't yet had the chance to see live. They played an efficient set, song after song churned out.

Loud, soft, loud. But that's how they are.

Definitely a few goosebump moments, hearing a few particular tracks (Debaser, Monkey Gone to Heaven...) and seeing the reaction of the crowd to each song. We had great seats (yep, seats at the bowl - thank you Ticketmaster pre-sales) slightly to the right and two rows back into the second block of sets... better than the front sets, because we didn't have anyone in front of us; a nice, uninterrupted view for all of us, tall and short.

Wasn't sure how they would sound... Frank Black (is that his name these days, I can't keep up?) "talked" the first few lines of Bone Machine as the gig started, so I was worried how the rest of the set would sound - but no problems there, especially some of his screams. Was Kim "as cool as Kim Deal"? Yeah, although she didn't have much vocabulary beyond "thanks". But what definitely got me worried was when one of several inflatable beach balls got up and stage and Monkey Gone to Heaven got stopped because "the Pixies draw the line at beach balls". Fair enough too. I was seriously stressed that they would just walk off... but instead they had a conversation about how to restart the show, and then really loosened up.

Can I just say though, best of the V Festival... cheapo "festival" of the year. Minimal food choice, a single ridiculous bar area without much of a view (sardine tin, really - lucky I didn't bother going in)... a bunch of friends having a picnic in the park could almost do better. I suspect many punters were turned off by the price, despite having the Pixies on the line-up... it certainly didn't seem full at the bowl. They would have still made a mint though over the two nights. The two things that summed up the non-music aspects of the festival...
i. a guy who walked in ahead of me and I heard say "oh, I thought it was sponsored by Channel V", and
ii. the afore-mentioned beach balls messing up the Pixies... officially sponsored beach balls, complete with corporate logos of the festival sponsors.
Seriously, you idiots...