Pixies

Six years ago I stood in the Auckland Town Hall and heard Brian Molko pay homage to one of the greatest rock acts of all time, what he called ''a blueprint for modern rock'', the Pixies. The piercing guitar theme of Where Is My Mind is famous beyond the lovers of alternative rock (if, sadly, only because of the ending credits of Fight Club), and as I watched Placebo perform a searing cover of it I had little knowledge of how profoundly the song would impact on my life.

Once again it was a brother who instigated the great push into the Pixies discography. My fifth form year was absolutely littered with Surfer Rose & Come on Pilgrim (purchased first due to the seventh track being 'Where is My Mind'). I would walk to the train station most days listening to Caribou, Vamos, or Teenage Angst off Placebo's debut, which Ian had purchased at the same time to complete his Placebo collection. Later in the year I participated in a somewhat listliss cover of Where Is My Mind myself with a few friends from my music class. And forever in my mind was cemented an immediate relationship between Placebo and Pixies as I grew up on a diet of both.

Now, in March, the circle will be complete. After six years of personal homage to the gods of alternative rock, they are coming. Six years after seeing Placebo change my life, the Pixies will come to hopefully do the same. At approximately 12:21pm today, those tickets became mine.

A tight group of close friends and eternal Pixies loyalists have been preparing for this day with me, but I don't believe ever dared it would come. We've been attending Proxies - the definitive NZ Pixies cover band (who are actually fuckign awesome) - gigs for what seems like years now, dancing as hard as we could as though our energy we would be pulled closer to the real thing, knowing that a real Pixies experience will never happen.

But now it will.

I would like to say a big Fuck You to ticketmaster for making this supposedly impossible occurance even more impossible. If even one of my friends misses out on tickets because of your shittily designed website and process I will come after you with an army of ninja gummie bears. They'll cut you.