You have to feel a little bad for Jay Reatard. Admittedly, there are worse places to be: the guy is a prolific artist, having just put out his second solo album following three earlier single releases and a compilation for Matador Records. In addition, being asked to open for a band like the Pixies must be an incredible honor, and the best thing for any musical artist is the opportunity to have your music heard by a large new audience.

Then again, Jay and his new backing band (the old one quit on him in October) were competing against a band that’s already got their legacy firmly entrenched. Like many bands in the opening slot, the vast majority of the crowd in the Hammerstein Ballroom wasn’t there to see them, but rather, a reunion of one of the most important and influential bands of the past twenty-five years. Moreover, that aforementioned band was playing its arguably most beloved work, start to finish, complete with all of its B-sides. This wasn’t just a reunion, it was a victory lap.

And so, with the outcome predetermined, Jay and the new Reatards got on stage and played one of the most aggressive sets that I’ve ever seen. They played for just under 40 minutes; they may have blasted through 20 full songs. There was no stage banter, and there was rarely a lull. Instead, Jay would ramp his way through a song, let loose a blast of feedback, bark out the title of the next song, and, with little more warning than that, immediately get into the next. Breathless isn’t quite the word.

Sadly, his energy wasn’t echoed by the crowd, since most of the spectators were there for the main event. They looked anxious for the Pixies to go on; by contrast, Jay looked a little uneasy with the size of the enormous stage he was standing on. It was far from the ideal setting to see Reatard, and if at all possible, I cannot urge you enough to see him at one of his own shows.

And, umm, yeah, Pixies.

There isn’t really much else that needs to be said about the tour at this point, since everyone vaguely knows the story. The Cliff’s notes go like this: the band was a creative force in the late 1980s, released two more albums and then broke up in 1993. More than a decade later, they reunited and have been doing infrequent appearances at festivals ever since, despite only recording one new song since their reunion (2004’s “Bam Thwok,” rejected for the Shrek 2 soundtrack).

After seeing them this go-around, I’m still not sure if they even like each other. The band stayed in their respective quadrants of the stage through the entire show, and there might have been ten words spoken between them. In fact, the only person that I saw crack a smile on stage was bassist Kim Deal. This uneasy peace between the band members translated into a bit of an awkward start, especially with the show’s start: an introductory projection of Salvatore Dali’s surrealist film Un chien andalou (“SLICIN’ UP EYEBALLS, I WANT YOU TO KNOOOOOOOW!”) and four B-sides, each separated by some clumsy Deal schtick (“This is a B-side so old even we had to relearn it!”).

But once the bass intro and shrill chords of “Debaser” rang out, it wasn’t hard to remember what warranted this victory lap in the first place. After all, Doolittle still holds up 20 years later, a brisk 38 minutes that moves effortlessly across musical styles but never feels unfocused. Even more importantly, unlike a lot of bands that decide to reunite, the Pixies showed no real signs of decline. All of the instrumentation sounded great; more importantly, Black Francis’s alternate screaming and whispers sound just as urgent as they were twenty years before.

Those who like their live acts to do a bit of improvisation may have left this show disappointed: the first twenty-one songs of the set (all of Doolittle’s tracks and B-sides) have been set in stone from night one, and they were essentially note-for-note renditions. And on this particular night, the second of four shows in New York on this tour, the encore was slightly lackluster as well, at least by comparison to the previous night’s monster ending of “Where Is My Mind?” and “Gigantic.”

Night two’s crowd was rewarded with a spastic rendition of goofy Surfer Rosa track “Broken Face,” as well as underrated early track “Caribou.” By that point, it really wouldn’t have mattered, as the crowd was more than satisfied. After all, Doolittle, one year away from drinking age, is an adult now. It can speak for itself.