The blocks surrounding Fine Line Music Café—the well-scrubbed, 750-capacity Minneapolis venue-of-choice for acts from Bob “The Bachelor” Guiney to Blonde Redhead to Galactic—were the perfect seller’s market. The lowest offer even mentioned for a single ticket was $200, a sum that was summarily dismissed by the skilled Ticketmaster dialers and in-the-know scenesters (not to mention those who’d already paid more on eBay) waiting in a line that stretched around the building hours before the 8 p.m. door time. One potential buyer pleaded with the lucky: “I’ll pay your salary for a week!” Every ticket in the place had been claimed within three minutes of going on sale, no surprise given that April 13, 2004, marked the monumental-enough-to-warrant-capital-letters Pixies Reunion Show. A chance to witness something so potentially monumental made big-money offers easy to laugh off.

Frank Black—the artist formerly known as both Black Francis and Charles Thompson—dismissed the idea of a Pixies reunion for years after the band’s 1992 breakup, stating on separate occasions that the band would regroup only if they could play on the moon, or “if [he] were penniless or a family member needed a kidney transplant.” Even the T-shirts on sale painted Pixies 2004 as a nostalgic money grab: The only design that wasn’t simply a reprint of an old model (including one picturing the band circa ’89) read “Pixies Sellout” alongside the current tour dates.

But when the foursome walked onstage looking as refreshingly unfashionable as they had in the early ’90s and kicked, one by one, into “Bone Machine,” the first track from their first full-length album, all doubts about motivation melted. The Pixies catalog, which the band would blaze through in 90 minutes, felt more thunderously relevant than ever. Yes, everyone looked older and, with the exception of drummer David Lovering, a bit thicker. Black seemed nervous, bassist Kim Deal giddy, guitarist Joey Santiago characteristically stoic and Lovering cheery beneath a little leather cap and long, curly hair.

Before Black even eked out a “hello,” the Pixies had finished half a dozen rapturously received songs, including “Wave Of Mutilation” (which they’d reprise during the encore in its “UK Surf” version), “U-Mass” (the show’s only selection from 1991 swan song Trompe Le Monde), and “Monkey Gone To Heaven” (during which Black broke Santiago’s ice with that song’s simple utterance, “Rock me, Joe”). Saying that it felt like no time had passed would be ridiculous: It felt like a genuine reunion moment, like four people coyly enjoying themselves for the benefit of several hundred. Add to that an affectionate, first-ever live performance of “La La Love You,” and then cast all doubts aside: It may be about the money, but that’s certainly not the whole of it.

The crowd, from those clearly too young to have seen the Pixies live to those male-pattern-balding right alongside Black and Santiago, found something to shout along with in almost every song, from “The Holiday Song” (“This ain’t no holiday!”) to “Gigantic,” in a set that leaned heavily on the oldest Pixies material. Three-quarters of the night’s 27 songs came from Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa or Doolittle, though a couple of odd choices (“Vamos,” Neil Young’s “Winterlong”) made the cut as well.

By the oddly paced encore, the Pixies seemed both tired and relaxed: Black looked 10 years younger after 60 minutes of playing. The band missed the opportunity to end the show perfectly with a transcendent reading of “Where Is My Mind?” choosing instead to fade away with Deal-sung b-side “Into The White.” It was a forgivable anti-climax in a night of repeated zeniths, and the band made up for it with smiles and handshakes—both with each other and the first couple of rows of fans—that felt as genuine and welcome as the long-missed songs themselves.