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Thursday nights at Heaven don’t often look like this. The London gay club is filled with messy-haired Zoomers wearing baggy jeans and heavy silver chains, who sold out the venue in seconds. They’re here to see 2hollis (real name Hollis Frazier-Herndon), who just last year was booed offstage while supporting Ken Carson on tour. Tonight, however, he gets nothing but adoration.
2hollis first became popular online for making medieval-themed trap and, alongside the likes of Nettspend and fakemink, has been a major influence on fashion and digital culture at large. And though the phrase ‘nepo baby’ has been thrown around (his mother managed Skrillex and founded a successful PR film, while his father is the drummer of American rock band Tortoise), tonight proves 2hollis is a genuine phenomenon with an undeniably organic fanbase.
As the 21-year-old jumps around on stage, his long platinum pigtails bouncing off his bare chest, he looks like a Dragon Age character that went to Central Saint Martins. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he drawls in Auto-Tune to a rapturous response. It’s the most we hear from him all night, but he doesn’t need to be too talkative when his fans react to his presence by slamming their bodies together and waving his red-and-white branded flags like a call to battle.
In a world post-‘Whole Lotta Red’, kids want to be immersed in a wall of noise to get out of their heads and throw down. But with 2hollis, it’s different. His lyrics, though somewhat cringey, actually have sentiment. ‘Sister’ has the whole crowd singing: “Girl, I love you like a sister / Cross my fingers when I’m with you / Hold back a smile ’til my teeth hurt.” They’re lines that could be lifted from a noughties Bieber album, but backed by Drain Gang beats that propel it into the TikTok age.
In response, the crowd gives each song the big hitter treatment: every word is cried back at blistering volume, there’s no break in the moshing, and there’s never a moment to pop out for a quick ciggy (everyone’s vaping anyway).
Standouts include the sugary sweet ‘Crush’, which has an 80 per cent male crowd singing sweetly while smacking into each other; ‘Afraid’, with an appearance from support act and childhood friend Nate Sib (who had the crowd riled up nicely from his earlier set); and ‘Jeans’ – which goes down so well that he does it four times.
Though it does feel like 2hollis didn’t quite have control of the crowd to start, sheer excitement has them jumping incessantly to the first few songs that it almost doesn’t matter what he was playing. By the end, he manages to wrangle them into place. He reminds them to give each other space, perches on the side of the stage for slower moments like a real teenage pop star and even gets right up against the barrier for the final rendition of ‘Jeans’ before finally declaring: “That’s it!” After doing three encores, he needn’t say much else.
‘Gold’
‘Say It Again’
‘FORFEIT’
‘Trauma’
‘Poster Boy’
‘Sister’
‘Need That’
‘Lie’
‘Two Bad’
‘Crush’
‘GOD (Live Edit)’
‘Style’
‘Whiplash’
‘Cliche’
‘Afraid (With Nate Sib)’
‘Light’
‘Ouu (Alongside Rommulas)’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
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Pixies have unveiled four previously unheard tracks, all written during the period when the band were putting together ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’.
The four recordings come from between 1987 and 1991 and are now available across all digital streaming services for the first time. They originally appeared as two bonus 7” singles included with the limited-edition remastered pressings of ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’.
Among the tracks is the Steve Albini version of ‘Dig For Fire’, recorded in late 1987 while the band were working on ‘Surfer Rosa’. The song was later reworked before appearing on ‘Bossanova’ almost three years later.
The collection also features ‘Punk Loop’, an unreleased jam recorded during the 1991 sessions for ‘Trompe le Monde’ and originally labelled ‘Punk Loop’ MSTR. Another addition is ‘Brackish Boy’, a track first written with Pixies before being rerecorded by Black Francis for his self-titled solo debut in 1993. The newly released version was mastered directly from the original album session tape, without any additional post-production.
The fourth track is ‘Go Man Go’, written by Black Francis and Kim Deal while the band were recording ‘Bossanova’ and The Breeders were working on ‘Last Splash’. The song did not make the final tracklist of either album, although The Breeders performed it live on a few occasions in the years that followed.
The track made another appearance in 2023 when The Breeders included it in the 30th anniversary reissue of ‘Last Splash’.
Pixies have marked their 40th anniversary throughout this year, including a UK and European tour over the summer. During a conversation with NME at Mad Cool Festival earlier this year, guitarist Joey Santiago revealed that the band were still making progress on new material.
“We’re always in the works. Same formula,” he said. “We have a break coming up in October and we’re gonna get together and piece more songs together.”
The band's latest studio release is 2024’s ‘The Night The Zombies Came’, which marked their first album featuring bassist Emma Richardson. They are also scheduled to tour the US with Queens Of The Stone Age in 2027 as part of the upcoming tour.
