Ohio’s own The Breeders are all business this evening as they attack their performance with a trademark vigour that we’ve become accustomed to over their 20 year long career. Led by the charismatic Deal twins, Kim of the legendary Pixies fame and her sister Kelley and a cracking rhythm section made up of Jose Medeles on the drums and Mando Lopez on bass who blasted out a series of progressions that had the joint jumping out of their collective skins. Cheryl Lyndsey provides invaluable guitar work, but it’s the twin terrors that the crowd embrace at every turn.
Nostalgia is in the air. You can taste it. Will they pull out an odd Pixies tune to blow the room away? Cries for Gigantic and Monkey Gone To Heaven can be heard filtering through the joint, but this ain’t the Pixies folks as much as some of you want it to be. The Breeders are their own beast and man are they in red-hot form tonight.
The synergy between the Deal sisters is something to behold. They’ve perfected their pop/rock sound to the point where the songs have become second nature, and classics from days gone by taken from Last Splash and _Title TK- get a run such as Off You, New Year, Cannonball and No Aloha. There were also newbies from Mountain Battles with Overglazed appearing as the bands first song in their encore as well as Bang On and We’re Gonna Rise making an appearance with a sound mix that is bold and brash and complements the bands full, punishing potential.
When Kelley Deal takes to the violin to perform Drivin’ On 9 the crowd joins in on one of the many singalongs before The Breeders launch into I Just Wanna Get Along that again transports the Melbourne punters back some fifteen years ago.
Pulling out the Beatles’ Happiness Is a Warm Gun, off their debut record Pod, the Deal sisters are jovial and in a playful mood, before easing into a story about Mother Deal and who her favourite daughter is in the tender lullaby, Here No More. And when we’re treated to an imperfect Regalame Esta Noche complete with its off-the-wall Spanish language skills, nobody really cares as we’re too caught up in the aura and mystique of these incorrigible indie freaks to worry about finding faults.
