After a painless hop to Sydney, we checked in at the newly refurbished Sydney Hilton. The beds are a pretty standard luxury king with a pillowtopper. The bathrooms though are sensational. Going the same way as a number of hotels and domestic bathrooms, the folks at the Hilton decided nobody much uses the bathtub anymore and have installed a shower on the tub footprint. Aside from the broad shower head, there was an additional large rain shower head hanging from the ceiling and TC was quite taken with the in-shower telly – although we didn’t manage to get it to work. (Debaser – probably my fave Pixies track – a perfect balance between the vocal extremes of Black Francis and Kim Deal)

The Pixies show was definitely the right way to kick off a US holiday. One of the reasons my collection of ticket stubs from live shows is bigger than my CD collection is the way you can completely lose yourself and your mind in the music at a live show. Standing in a sea of people who were there for the music – many of whom had more grey hair than I imagine I would if I threw out the dye bottle. Most of us were reminded of our age and the age of the Doolittle album when Kim announced ‘we’re coming to the end of side 1’. For anyone under 30 – yes back in ye olden days, we actually had to walk to the record player and turn the album over half way through. They were, as expected, mesmerising, and they played a number of tracks only really hardcore fans would have recognised – you know the type – ‘I just have to have the limited edition, US release of the single – I’ve only got the three Australian on two UK versions so far’. Even Kim Deal admitted they had never played some of the songs live before. And as suggested, the show was about the Dooloittle album, largely played in order, interspersed by b-sides. The encore began with the second, quieter, version of Wave of Mutilation and ended with Gigantic which while not strictly off the Doolittle album, certainly made for a huge finish (Gigantic- The Pixies, predictably – again heavy on the Kim Deal vocals – Kim is my indie music heroine – one of the few that is so much more about the music than fame).