The Breeders + Screamfeeder @ The Tivoli, 29.10.2013

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Making the photos in your head that you want to take match the photos that you actually take at a show is a regular source of frustration.  However, tonight is a good night as at the fifth time of asking, I get a photo of Kim Deal that I’m really happy with.

The first time was Pixies at V Festival on the Gold Coast back in 2007.   The Pet Shop Boys, who were the headliners on the second stage, started late and the small window between the two main headliners vanished and I can remember rounding the corner as I ran to the main stage and seeing that the band had already started, and then getting to the pit and being completely unprepared.  I think I only got about a song-and-a-half and the whole thing was a real rushed job.  From memory history more or less repeated itself when the band played at one of the Woodford Splendour In The Grasses, with the massive distance between the stages providing a massive workout over the course of the weekend and resulting in another rushed job, although I think I did get the best part of the first three songs.  The final Pixies photo opportunity was one of the Doolittle shows at the Convention Centre but the lighting was pretty poor and it was an overall disappointment.  I also took a few photos of The Breeders at the Ten Years of ATP festival at Minehead but it from the crowd without a photo pass and so a distance away from the stage with a whole bunch of crowd in-between.

The band less shambolic than they were at that ATP, when at one point Kim and Kelly started playing different songs. I think they’re a better recording band than they are a live band, they’ve always had this awkwardness about them that comes across as a lack of self-confidence.  They’re not natural performers.  Most of going to see The Breeders play live is about being in the same room as Kim Deal’s voice and listening to her sing the likes of ‘Iris’, ‘Driving On 9’, ‘No Alloha’, and ‘Divine Hammer’.

The Tivoli is a lot busier than I would have expected, especially given that they played at The Zoo last time they were in Brisbane (and I don’t know if it sold out).  Last Splash seems an odd choice as an album to play all the way through, even though it’s the album celebrating a 20th anniversary.  I guess I always preferred Pod, my introduction to the band when it was a new album.  One of the main disadvantages in playing Last Splash from start to finish is that for many people it peaks a couple of songs in with Canonball and afterwards the room feels a bit flat.

It’s incredible to consider that the Deal twins are 52 now, time really does just flies and suddenly the albums you grew up with are celebrating all these milestone anniversaries, 20 years and more.  The band gets older, and although you get older in a way you don’t really realise it until you start working out how long ago all these things were. It’s all such a long time ago and yet at the same time it feels like it was only yesterday.

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