The Planet of Sound

will be visited tonight beginning at 7pm at Jones Beach Amphitheater. I will be checking out one of my favorite bands, The Pixies, along with Interpol and LCD Soundsystem.

A little older, a little heavier, and except for bassist Kim Deal; a little balder, the Pixies are still heavy duty rockers of the first order. They were pretty much a mainstay on the soundtrack of my college years and even after they split up around 1994 they have remained in heavy rotation on my CD player. Over the years, surpisingly, I think I've grown to love and respect their music even more. For me, they are a terriffic blend of melodious pop hooks backed by superior rock musicianship.

This will be the fourth time I have seen them live (I should probably do a post on my career as concert attendee sometime). I first saw them opening up for U2 at Dallas' Reunion Arena on the Achtung Baby tour. My next glimpse of the band was later that same year in a small club in Dallas at which Ice-T and Bodycount opened up. Save for the time I saw Nirvana, that was the most off the hook concert I've ever attended. The last time I saw The Pixies was back in January here in NY at the Hammerstein Ballroom. They always put on a top notch performance, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

I also saw Interpol a few months ago at Radio City. In many respects, I find them to be something of a Joy Division rip-off, but it's actually OK since Joy Division isn't around anymore and someone needs to be making that kind of music. I was surprised to see how well they translated from album to concert stage and now I'll be interested to see how the whole thing works at an outdoor venue. As for LCD Soundsystem, I don't know much about them but I've heard they are really good.

It's also kind of a big evening on another front. I will be attending the concert with a woman whom I hadn't had the guts to ask out for about a year. So I finally summoned up my courage and invited her to the show (kind of a slam dunk, because I knew she liked The Pixies). She accepted and so this will be kind of a first date. After agreeing to go, she then proceeded to ask me out for a pre-emptive mini-date last Sunday, which was a lot of fun. So we'll see how it goes.

In any case, it should be a lot of fun and I will do a review tomorrow. Of the show, people. The show.