Black Francis Played the Wonder Bar Last Night

May 14th, 2013, Asbury Park, NJ

I felt pretty bad. Fourth place at the half, but all of the teams had used their bonus round; so we still had a shot at finishing in the money. With the upcoming picture round set to be "Know Your Internet Meme," I knew that my many hours spent in front of the computer could not help but be of some value to my trivia teammates. But I just couldn't stick around any longer.

Under the glare of at least one very disappointed look, I waved to the Quizzard as he started dialing a friend in the Great White North for the new "Ask a Canadian" round; and I left Asbury Lanes to head over to the Wonder Bar to catch the Black Francis show. I'm still not sure how my team finished, but I got a voicemail that made it sound like the end wasn't pretty. I don't think I would've been much help.

My Tuedsay Night Trivia commitment forced me to miss opener Reid Paley, with whom Black Francis released an album in 2011. I arrived just as Paley was leaving the stage, made a stop at the bar and was able to weave my way right up to the front. The Wonder Bar was pretty packed, but I'm not sure that the show sold out.

Black Francis walked onto the stage just after 9:30 to a burst of applause even though he was just performing some final setup. He acknowledged the reception and held up his Fender Jaguar. Applause! He held up his electric guitar cable. Applause! He held up his pick. Applause! He pointed to the mic stand. Applause! "OK. That's it. I'm not going to make you clap for a tuner." "We would!!!" was the response from someone in the crowd.

From there, Francis opened the set with "Cactus" and "Wave of Mutilation," shouting "Rock me, Joey Santiago," to his imaginary bandmate at the moment of the latter's mini guitar solo. I didn't keep a set list, but I think the next song was "Subbacultcha," after which Francis said, "OK. I started you off with three moldy oldies... ...let's do a newby booby."

That's how the rest of the evening went. Francis rattled off song after song with barely a break in between, mixing in Pixies classics -- "Mr. Grieves," "Nimrod's Son," "Monkey Gone to Heaven,""Gouge Away" -- with songs from each of his solo incarnations -- "Sing for Joy," "Tight Black Rubber," "Bullet," "She Took All the Money," "California Bound." He added several covers, including "Wheels" by Graham Parsons, "That Burnt Out Rock and Roll" by Gary Green, and a great version of "The Black Rider" by Tom Waits.

One of the most interesting aspects of Black Francis has always been the way he uses his voice. Just like the quiet-loud-quiet approach that defined The Pixies' music, Francis takes his voice from a whisper to a scream or bellow and everything in between. "The Black Rider," especially in the solo format with just electric guitar accompaniment, had Francis running through all of his vocal tricks and affectations in excellent Waits-like fashion.

Paley joined Francis for a four-song encore that included the duo's "Ugly Life" along with Kinky Friedman's "Wild Man from Borneo."

"Intimate" is a word often used to describe solo sets like this. This one came about as close to that as I've seen in a while. Black Francis regularly made eye contact with and acknowledged those of us in the front. The stripped down versions of all of the songs had people singing along, filling in the Kim Deal parts or additional instrumentals on many of The Pixies' selections. And Francis seemed to be enjoying himself as much as the crowd.

It was a truly fine evening, even if I do still feel a little guilty.