Hard-rocking Pixies pick up where they left off

AMHERST -- Reunions by long-defunct bands, especially those that dissolved in acrimony and rancor, are usually greeted with an uneasy mixture of nostalgia and cynicism. Sure, you welcome an opportunity to see your favorite band one more time, but it can also be tough to shake the feeling that such tours are more about padding bank accounts, less about adding to a musical legacy.

Still, it's hard to begrudge the Pixies, who got back together last year more than a decade after the group disintegrated. First of all, its members have admitted that this tour is primarily about making big bucks, and really, what's wrong with that? All this Boston-born band accomplished, when they formed in 1986, was reinventing -- some might even say rescuing -- rock.

During their 90-minute show at the Mullins Center, the Pixies showed why, even during their lengthy absence, they have continued to cast an indelible shadow over the landscape of modern rock music. More popular now than they were when they broke up in 1992, the Pixies have earned the right to bask in their hard-won glory. While they influenced bands from Nirvana to Radiohead, they never achieved the mainstream success of those they inspired.

So last night, these wondrous no-hit wonders offered a musical history lesson as much as a rock show. The Pixies -- singer-guitarist Frank Black, singer-bassist Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago, and drummer David Lovering -- have lost little of the power and fury that propelled them through their six-year, five-album run.

Welcomed to the stage with a thunderous roar, the band ripped into "Bone Machine," and Black -- who, back in the day, was known as Black Francis -- still possesses one of the most heart-stopping screams in rock.

With the majority of the crowd standing on the sizable floor in front of the stage, the Pixies never gave them a reason to stand still. A half-dozen songs into their set, some people were crowd-surfing and moshing like it was the early 1990s, and the Pixies were doing their best to rescue rock from the hair-metal Philistines.

Between Santiago's tart guitar retorts, Deal's bottomless bass lines, and Lovering's relentless drum attack, there wasn't much chatter beyond Deal asking Black which UMass-Amherst hall he once lived in. (Both Black and Santiago dropped out of the university in the 1980s.)

Then again, who'd prefer cheesy conversations to hearing such songs as "Monkey Gone to Heaven," "Gigantic," and "Caribou"? With no album to flog, it was an all-killer, no-filler show as the band's playlist consisted of selections from their original catalog.

While there's no indication that this reunion will include a return to the recording studio and new music, no one seemed to care. Nothing short of miraculous, the Pixies are back together on their own terms which, if nothing else, saves them from the indignity of being stalked by that irritating guy on VH1's "Bands Reunited."