First up were support act Violent Soho. They came across as a lot more straightforward grunge than their recordings suggest and even looked the stereotype with standard issue ripped jeans and long dirty hair to boot. The bass player had the guitar slung so low that it made him look like a hunchback and on one of the amps was a small painted love heart which juxtaposed their ‘we’re angry and have guitars’ attitude. However they played competently and even featured a nice cover of My Pal by the defunct Melbourne band GOD.

Next up was the man himself. Black Francis a.k.a. Frank Black a.k.a. Charles Michael Kittridge Winchester the 4th marched on stage with his cohorts as the Peter Gunn theme played in the background. Clad in black with tinted glasses, because inside the Forum at night clearly isn’t dark enough, he got straight into things, featuring early Test Pilot Blues. This show, unlike other recent performances focused heavily on recent Black Francis material, so no there was no half hour of Pixies material as in Perth (apparently this was because Melbourne is a more ‘sophisticated’ venue). Instead the show centred on his newer material such as Angels Come To Comfort You that deals with the life and death of Herman Brood, a Dutch rocker of some notoriety. Among the setlist were titles such as When They Come to Murder Me, Threshold Apprehension, and Captain Pasty showing that Francis can still write and sing a good melody. For those that haven’t seen Francis play recent (i.e. at one of those reunion gigs) he can still play and sing quite well, even after all these years of trying to remove his vocal chords by shouting/screeching loudly.

There were unfortunately some drawbacks to the show that should be mentioned however. First off there was nothing of interest visually apart from the standard shine-directly-into-your-eyes-at-random stage lights, but for a singer-songwriter this can be forgiven. Less forgivable was the lack of interaction with the crowd by Frankie most exemplified when he seemed to talk to himself when explaining some songs. Perhaps this was because of the inevitable hecklers shouting ‘play Breeders!’, and the equally annoying supporters telling him to do what he wanted. Also probably unnecessary was a song about being an aging rocker, which, considering the circumstances, was quite depressing . This was sung at the end of the night though, when the band left stage and Frank was left to his own devices. Speaking of the end of the show there was no encore, just a farewell and a raised beer as he departed. Despite the excess of negatives though, the crowd didn’t seem too fazed by them and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Speaking of the end the show did finish on a highlight with Velouria being chosen the inevitable Pixies song. Perhaps Black Francis isn’t the performer he once was, but he still put on a good performance and the audience had a good time, and at the end of the day that’s what counts.