Live Music Review: THE BREEDERS (!!!) at Leeds Metropolitan University 09/04/08

What can I say?! I have seen The Breeders! Kim Deal (pictured above) is one of my heroines...and now I have seen her in the flesh and, possibly, breathed the same air as her (it was quite a large room!).

This was, without doubt, my gig highlight of the year so far. The nearest that they were coming to where I live was Leeds (which is about 100 miles away...and it was on a school night!), but I just could not miss out on this, their first tour since 2002 and the first time Kim and Kelley Deal have been in the band together since the album Last Splash in 1993 (for more about The Breeders and the Deal sisters, as well as some other awesome bands, see this 4AD Family Tree). As you can tell by the multitude of exclamation marks, I was like a teenage girl at a Take That concert!

I managed to rope in a colleague to join me for the post-work drive down for the evening's revelries; this colleague had never heard of The Breeders, nor even Pixies (what??). My blatherings about the seminal importance of Pixies (possibly my favourite band ever) and Deal as a massively influential woman in rock, simply because, waaaay back in 1986, she was in such a male-orientated domain just doing her job well...and she happened to be a woman, had little impact. Said colleague was music maestro for the trip, some 6500 tunes at her disposal, and the majority she chose came from The Best 80s Album In the World...Ever! (which I have been meaning to remove as it is taking up valuable space on my iPod!).

Kim and Kelley Deal (identical twins, if you did not already know this...although Kim was always the hot one, both due to being in Pixies and being generally a bit less fucked up on smack!) look totally different (from each other) now...Kim has put on some weight (bring it on...see here), whilst Kelley, although on top form and very obviously having cleaned up her act, was wiry and lithe.

All the old faves went down a storm, with the harmonies on Divine Hammer sounding particularly good. And the new tracks sounded great too. In fact, Mountain Battles is a stonking good album...about which I am very relieved, as I was worried about being disappointed after all these years (their last album, Title TK, was released back in 2002). I was elated to hear the live runs of the new material only days after I had heard it on the album (save for a few tracks which had been leaked).

The band were tight, Kim and Kelley bouncing off each other as only people who know each other this well can do. Kim sported a beaming smile throughout, and it really looked like everyone was thoroughly enjoying playing together again (with the addition of a young, female, Newton Faulkner lookalike), their voices spot on and the guitars suitably raucous (thank goodness!).

A brief review, this one, but I was just far too hyperactive on the night to even begin to think about what I might write! The Breeders will reign again!

Below are the best of the photographs I was able to take...no really! Why do you think I headed up this post with a press photo? (I thought I'd include them to perhaps get a giggle...well, and to prove I was there...who would look for such rubbish shots?).

Oh, and I also found this online, which was fitting, and made me laugh:

Visit the Breeder's Digest for up-to-date tour info and other fun stuff.

Unofficial (but jolly good) Breeders website.

The Breeders on MySpace.

Download some sample tracks from Mountain Battles (and then buy the album, because it's a corker):

Bang On - The Breeders

We're Gonna Rise - The Breeders

Walk It Off - The Breeders