Pixies bringing "Doolittle" shows to U.S

[The Pagemeister]

Pixies bringing "Doolittle" shows to U.S

By Gary Graff

DETROIT (Billboard) - The Pixies piqued fans' interest with news they'd regroup to play their 1989 album "Doolittle" in Europe. Now the group says it will bring the record's 20th anniversary celebration to the U.S. in November.

The Pixies will perform "Doolittle," their second album, during each of 14 U.S. theater shows beginning November 4 in Los Angeles and ending November 30 in Washington, D.C., with multi-night stands in Oakland, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Tickets go on sale Saturday (August 1).

The tour follows a 13-date European run that starts September 30 in Dublin, Ireland. The Pixies also are performing at the V Festival near Toronto on August 29.

"I'm so general public, I love the idea of playing a full album," Pixies bassist Kim Deal told Billboard.com. "We had talked in 2007 about doing an album from the top to the end, maybe doing (1988's) 'Surfer Rosa' and then 'Doolittle.' The only things that we don't know, that we don't play live, from ('Doolittle') are 'Silver' and 'There Goes My Gun,' so we're going to add those two, and the B-sides."

Among the B-sides the tracks "Weird at My School, "Bailey's Walk" and "Dancing the Manta Ray," though Deal said the group also thought about "having a Pixies tribute band open for us and let them play our B-sides. We thought that would be funny."

Deal, who's touring with the Breeders, said she and the rest of the Pixies, who have been playing intermittently since reuniting in 2004, are a bit surprised to be working so much this year after having planned to take time off.

"It didn't knock me off my socks, though," Deal said. "It's kind of like, 'Great, we're gonna do some stuff ...' What happened was we got offered the Isle of Wight (festival), and they were telling us some other band, some other band, then us, then Neil Young, and we were like, 'OK, whatever, sure, we'll be there,' and that put us back in motion."

In addition to the "Doolittle" shows, the Pixies are preparing for the October release of "Minotaur," a deluxe boxed set featuring all of the Pixies' albums and music videos along with a Blu-Ray DVD of a 1991 concert at London's Brixton Academy and a 54-page book. The packages for the two versions of the set were designed by original Pixies collaborators Vaughan Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier.

"What we've seen so far is really cool looking," Deal said. "We're one of the few bands that you can think of that actually just turned their visual image over to somebody else like that, so it's only fitting that Vaughan and Simon would work on the box set, too."

The Pixies U.S. "Doolittle" tour dates:

Nov 4: Los Angeles (The Palladium)

Nov 8-9: Oakland, CA (Fox Theater)

Nov 12-13: Seattle (Paramount Theater)

Nov 14: Eugene, OR (Hult Center)

Nov 16: Denver (The Fillmore)

Nov 20-21: Chicago (Aragon Ballroom)

Nov 23-25: New York (Hammerstein Ballroom)

Nov 27: Boston (Wang Center)

Nov 30: Washington, D.C. (Constitution Hall)