Live music review: Pixies, Franz Ferdinand and Bully Bring the Noise to Moody Amphitheater

Sometimes your concert lineup feels a bit lopsided. It’s the headliner you paid to see and an opener no one has ever heard of. Every once in a while, you get a stacked night of music from start to finish. Moody Amphitheater’s sold out show on June 25 featured Bully, Franz Ferdinand, and the Pixies, as the three’s last show together for the tour.

Nashville’s Bully (Alicia Bognanno) opened the night and gained some unsuspecting fans in the process. Her raw vocals and honest lyrics create a slew of thoughtful head-bangers. Bognanno’s fast-paced noisy grunge reminds you that you’re listening to punk music more akin to upstarts Wednesday than Snail Mail. You can feel the Soccer Mommy influences on her new record, Lucky for You.

 

Next, Glasgow’s Franz Ferdinand delivered alt-rock indie-bangers such as “Do You Want To” and “This Fire” as singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos donned one of the sparkliest, gemstone-laden Telecasters to grace the Moody Amphitheater stage.

Kapranos is constantly kicking, finger-wagging, and moving his hips to every cymbal crash and guitar strum. Some guitarists say they simply must conjure crazy faces to bend that high E string during a solo. If that’s the case for Kapranos, he’s not embracing his inner showman as much as roaming around stage out of necessity.

It would have been nice if the band members took off their sunglasses at some point during the performance, but the blazing Texas sun reminded fans that the gift of sight is precious and that you wish you remembered your shades too. The glaring sunlight also reflected off of a huge Dell building behind the amphitheater, as if God was trying to blind every stage performer that day.

“The sun is directly in my eyes but I just need to see you all because you look so fine,” said Kapranos, as he briefly took off his shades.

While I’m a sucker for artists with two drummers, Franz Ferdinand upped the ante once the keyboard player sat behind the drumkit and the entire band drummed on additional snares, a shared tom, and cowbells. You’ve gotta have a tight rhythm section for intricate disco beats and staccato guitar scrapes. You’ve got to be even tighter for an interlude featuring your entire band as competing metronomes. They pulled it off deftly, leaving the audience impressed.

A natural highlight came as the band played an extended intro for hit song, “Take Me Out,” leaning on the pulsing opening note for ages. They could have stopped after writing one of the most hypnotic riffs of the early 2000’s and rested on their laurels. Instead they turned in an iconic intro and an equally great chorus, cementing the song as a super-hit. When you create one of the most ubiquitous rock anthems of the 2000’s, it’s hard for your 800-million-times-streamed-song to NOT overshadow your other work. The band’s hard work, musicianship, and energy will keep them from any one-hit-wonder spectacle and make you feel like it’s 2004 all over again.

As the headlining Pixies graced the stage at a little after 8 PM, it felt odd to have the sun still shining. Once the sun set, the 90 degree setting was a welcome respite from the beating sun and 100 degree heat endured during Bully’s first few songs. 

The veterans began the set on a high-note with the, ‘there’s-something-boiling-under-the-surface’ anxiety of “Gouge Away” off the classic album, Doolittle. Even their signature “quiet/loud” dynamic sounded chaotic at times with vocal growls and sharp distortion throughout the evening. The quietest the band got was towards the middle of the set as Francis played an acoustic guitar through a section of songs from 2022’s LP Doggerel. It’s as 90’s pop-rock as the Pixies can go.

The crowd seemed to appreciate Francis singing at his most unhinged with standouts such as “Caribou,” “Vamos,” and “Nimrod’s Son”. The night’s highlights featured lead guitarist Joey Santiago hanging to the side of the stage, battling the feedback on his guitar and adding texture with droning notes.

The audience skewed older but the grunge and distortion on stage could have passed for a weekend punk show at Mohawk or Hotel Vegas in Austin with a buzz act you haven’t heard of yet. 

When your discography spans 40 years, it’s easy for a show to seem like a greatest hits even as this one did. And it was amazing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a newcomer or a seasoned pro – bringing the energy and bringing your best work is a choice bands make each time they step onto the stage. Even though the group has released four records since reforming in 2004, some folks just want to feel like it’s 1989 all over again. And with the Pixies as the soundtrack, who wouldn’t?

All photos by Drew Doggett