1986 Boston – a year, a city… spawning one of alternative music’s greatest pioneers. One of the most distinctive sounds and voices in music, influencers of multiple generations of musicians, four decades on (and counting…). A volatile mix of jagged guitars, outlandish lyrics, and sudden bursts of rhythm and melody. LOUD/quiet... Pixies.
Originated in Boston, embraced first by the UK, now adored worldwide.
To mark forty years of the band: founding members; Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering, with bassist Emma Richardson - mark four decades of the band by announcing Pixies 40 a new headline worldwide tour. First announcing shows in the UK and Europe across May, June & July 2026.
From their earliest club shows, the band exuded a combination of chaos and control that left audiences wide-eyed. No glamour, little stage banter; just a relentless surge of sound that resonated with those in attendance. For many fans, those early gigs were less concerts than revelations, a glimpse into a new way rock music could be performed.
1987’s mini-album Come On Pilgrim (which followed the release of Demos – more commonly known to fans as “The Purple Tapes” – also re-issued in October 2025), introduced the world to their fragmented, surreal songwriting. 1988’s Surfer Rosa made critics, and underground audiences realize that Pixies were doing something that hadn’t been heard before. Recorded with raw precision, these early albums captured the explosive dynamics that their concerts already embodied. Songs jumped between whispered calm and thunderous eruptions; the same jolts audiences were feeling in dimly lit venues across the Europe and back home in their native US.
Doolittle in 1989, moved the needle. That album, packed with pop hooks twisted into strange, menacing shapes, brought Pixies onto larger stages and into the consciousness of a wider public. Their shows grew more frenetic, audiences swelling and surging in rhythm with the music, a direct reflection of the tension and release encoded in their songs.
By the early 1990s, the Pixies were in their groove. Relentless touring across North America and Europe became an essential ticket for any fans who claimed to be lovers of alternative rock. A wall of sound that was never predictable, shifting between fragility and violence in a matter of seconds. A band who needed no such spectacle or theatrics, just an intensity of sudden release. The music was the show.
Fan favourites Bossanova and Trompe le Monde followed in 1990 and 1991 respectfully, before the dispending of the band in 1993.
Over a decade passed, but Pixies finally reformed in 2004, the response was electric. Tickets for their first shows sold out instantly, and the band quickly found themselves playing to an unprecedented crowd at Coachella festival. More touring and in rooms much larger than they ever did before.
The reunion reaffirmed the band’s reputation as a live act. If anything, their performances had grown sharper. Multiple generations of fans from different backgrounds found themselves together embracing Pixies’ genre defining sets. Those who were there in the beginning during the late 80’s and early 90’s, those who never had the chance to see the band first time around, those who were not even born during that time.
Since re-formation the band have been even more prolific, releasing more music since their reincarnation with album’s; Indie Cindy, Head Carrier, Beneath the Eyrie, Doggerel and The Night the Zombies Came begin released between 2014 and 2024. Recent years have seen the band routinely touring all four corners of the globe with their own sold-out headline shows and to festival audiences alike, while still being referenced as a major influence of contemporary alternative artists and bands.
Pixies… a band marking their 40th year together, still relevant and still innovative - there are no signs of stopping.
