I had the pleasure of attending the NYC premier of loudQUIETloud: a Film about the Pixies, at the Tribeca Film Festival on Tuesday. 

The film documents the successful 2004 reunion of the Pixies and in the process gives the viewer a rare glimpse at the people behind the music. 

I am nearly 40 years old, and have been a Pixies fan for nearly half of that time.  The thing that always struck me funny about being a Pixies fan is this: first, Pixies fans have an almost insane love of their music, and second, most fans have no idea of what the people in the band are like.  This film does a great job in addressing both of these points.

You get to watch as the band takes their first steps in the rehearsal studio, Kim Deal resorts to listening to her parts on an iPod to get the chord changes right, through their first live show in Minneapolis where the crowd goes absolutely wild.  “Did you see that?  Those people were freaking out! “, said Kim during a backstage break. 

The film goes on to show the band members in their day-to-day lives, Joey and Charles managing their careers and young families, Kim dealing with sobriety with the help of her twin sister Kellie, and Dave coping with his father’s illness and death.  All in all, they seem like four ordinary people.  The thing that makes them extraordinary is when they take the stage together; something happens that I can best describe as magic.  The concert footage in the film is beautifully shot, and the band sounds better than ever.  The Pixies are older, wiser and a little rounder, but they still know how to blow the house away.

The question of “are you going to record a new album” was posed to the band during the film and the answers were interesting.  Charles said that he was still in the song writing business, and it sounded like he was open to a new album.  He then went on to say that it would probably be best if they started over from scratch, maybe change their name to the “Vomit Squad” and start playing small clubs again, that would be the most honest way to do it.

You know what?  That sounds good to me.  “I’ll take four tickets for Vomit Squad’s Upchuck world tour 2007, please.”