There’s no neat way to explain what the Pixies did to rock music, but you can hear the aftershocks in almost everything that came after them. On August 28, the band that helped redraw the boundaries of loud and quiet, dissonance and beauty, will bring their singular force to Berkeley’s Greek Theatre for a night that promises both memory and momentum.
For all their influence, Pixies never sounded like a band chasing legacy. Their songs are too strange, too jagged, too alive for that. Frank Black’s screams still rupture in unexpected places. Joey Santiago’s guitar lines still snake like radio signals half-tuned from another planet. And the rhythms, always just slightly off-kilter, feel like they’ve been holding it together by instinct alone.
This isn’t a nostalgia act. Even as they revisit the fractured poetry of Doolittle, the surf-noir of Bossanova, and the raw nerve of Surfer Rosa, the Pixies continue to sound like a band playing on their own terms. Each show is a reminder of how much tension, humor, and ruin can be packed into a two-minute song.
The Greek, with its stone steps and open sky, offers a fitting backdrop: ancient, echoing, imperfect. Just like the band.
Pixies perform at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Thursday, August 28. Tickets available at ticketmaster.com.
Address: 2001 Gayley Rd, Berkeley, CA 94720
Show Time: 6:00 p.m.
Age: All Ages
