FOUR DECADES ON AND PIXIES ARE STILL ONE OF ROCK’S GREATEST LIVE BANDS

LIVE REVIEW | PIXIES w/ GANS | ON THE MOUNT AT WASING| 27th June 2026 by Kevin O’Sullivan

Some gigs begin when the lights go down. At Wasing, the experience starts long before that.

The walk to On The Mount is part of the evening itself. A winding woodland path leads you towards the arena, volunteers welcoming concertgoers while the scent of incense drifts through the trees. Decorations from the estate’s recent Summer Solstice celebrations still hang from branches, a reminder that Wasing is far more than a concert venue. Throughout the year it hosts yoga retreats, wild swimming, wellness events and seasonal gatherings, creating an atmosphere that encourages you to slow down long before the first band appears.

As the woodland opens, so does one of Britain’s most beautiful outdoor venues.

The natural amphitheatre means almost everyone enjoys a perfect view of the stage, whether standing at the front or relaxing further back on the hillside.

The contrast with the previous evening’s Mika crowd was striking. Gone were the bright colours and sequins, replaced by black Pixies T-shirts, faded tour merchandise and plenty of denim. Different crowd, same atmosphere. Around 5,000 people filled the hillside, chatting, laughing and waiting patiently for one of alternative rock’s most influential bands.

What really stood out, though, was the mix of generations.

Pre-school children in oversized Pixies shirts sat on picnic blankets while primary school youngsters played on the grass before the music began. Teenagers stood alongside parents who had clearly introduced them to Doolittle and Bossanova years ago, while those who had been there during the band’s original rise waited with exactly the same excitement.

Few bands can bring together four decades of fans quite like the Pixies.

Their music hasn’t simply stood the test of time; it’s been passed down through families. Looking across the crowd, this didn’t feel like strangers gathering for a gig. It felt like a shared tradition.

Formed in Boston in 1986, Pixies quietly changed alternative music. Their distinctive quiet-loud-quiet songwriting became hugely influential, inspiring artists from Nirvana and Radiohead to Blur and Weezer. Kurt Cobain famously admitted he was trying to write a Pixies song when ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ came together.

GANS

Before the headliners arrived, Birmingham duo GANS were given the task of warming up the crowd.

“The Pixies have brought us onstage to warm you stiff motherfuckers up!”

It was a promise they kept.

Trying to describe GANS is almost impossible because no two songs stay in the same place for long. Their set moved effortlessly between post-punk, noise-rock, electronic punk and industrial rhythms, creating something that felt fresh, unpredictable and impossible to ignore.

Just as entertaining was watching them perform.

Drummer and vocalist Euan Woodman repeatedly left his kit to throw himself into the audience, crowd surfing with microphone in hand before climbing back onstage as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Later he balanced upside down on his head while singing before worming his way across the stage, while the duo constantly twisted and crossed paths in a performance that was every bit as energetic visually as it was musically.

Their energy proved infectious.

By the end of the set, they’d achieved exactly what every support act hopes to do—win over an audience who had arrived to see someone else.

Pixies

There was no elaborate entrance for Pixies. No countdown. No fanfare. The band simply walked on stage, picked up their instruments and launched into ‘The Holiday Song’ before crashing into ‘Nimrod’s Son’.

The first huge roar arrived with ‘Here Comes Your Man’, immediately followed by ‘Vamos’, ‘Cactus’, ‘Death Horizon’, ‘Motorway to Roswell’, ‘Bone Machine’ and ‘Hang Wire’.

There was very little conversation. There didn’t need to be. The songs did all the talking.

Black Francis spoke only occasionally between songs, one of the few moments coming before introducing newer material. Laughing that every couple of years the band seem to appear on Later… with Jools Holland only to make “a train wreck” of every song, he smiled that they were determined not to let ‘Motoroller ‘suffer the same fate.

It was classic Pixies—dry, understated and over almost as quickly as it had begun.

As daylight faded across Wasing, the stage lighting came into its own. The surrounding woodland slipped gently into silhouette, providing a dramatic backdrop without distracting from what mattered most. There were no giant video screens or elaborate production; just four musicians whose songs have never needed embellishment.

That confidence was reflected in the set itself. ‘Velouria’, ‘The Happening’, ‘In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)’, ‘Ana’, ‘Mr. Grieves‘ and Neil Young‘s ‘Winterlong’ sat comfortably alongside the better-known favourites, a reminder that Pixies have never relied solely on nostalgia.

Then came the closing run everyone had been waiting for.

‘Hey’ drew one of the biggest singalongs of the night before ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ sounded every bit as urgent as it did almost four decades ago. The beautifully atmospheric UK Surf version of ‘Wave of Mutilation’ offered a brief pause before the unmistakable opening of ‘Where Is My Mind?’ echoed across the Berkshire hillside.

Five thousand voices instantly became one.

For a moment, I found myself looking away from the stage. Parents stood arm in arm with grown-up sons and daughters. Younger children, wearing ear defenders almost as big as themselves, danced happily on shoulders, while those who had first seen Pixies in the late eighties sang every word alongside a new generation discovering these songs in exactly the same way.

Few bands can claim that kind of legacy.

Without disappearing backstage for a predictable encore, Pixies closed with ‘Into the White’. No fuss, no theatrics—just a wave to the crowd before quietly leaving the stage, exactly as they had arrived.

The walk back through Wasing’s woodland felt every bit as special as the journey in. The scent of incense once again drifted through the trees as conversations turned to favourite songs, treasured memories and the joy of sharing music across generations.

Some bands have fans. Pixies have families.

In a venue built around connection and shared experiences, it was hard to imagine a more fitting headline act. Nearly forty years after they first emerged, Pixies remain one of the most influential live bands on the planet—not because they’ve changed, but because their music continues to find new ears, new hearts and new generations.

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Kevin O'Sullivan

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