At the Pixies’ Hollywood Palladium show on Wednesday night, the sold-out crowd of 4,000 seemed caught between genuflecting respectfully and just going nuts. Kicking off a 21-date U.S. tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their thorny masterwork Doolittle, the alt-rock icons performed the album start-to-finish in the form of an edgy history lesson, with the students devotedly trying to keep up.

Doolittle, along with the rest of the band’s legend, has only grown in stature over two decades, its sonic adventurousness and dark, abrasive personality seeping into the bloodlines of countless rockers to follow. But on this night, frontman Black Francis, bassist Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago, and drummer David Lovering were genially focused and the pace measured.

The album’s 15 tracks, after all, clock in at just 38 minutes—and even with its light show, video screen, and smoke machines, the performance didn’t attempt to match the explosiveness of the Pixies’ historic 2004 reunion shows.

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