A group growing into its popularity

One key question surrounding reunions of influential rock bands is to what extent they can match their first success. For the Pixies, the question shaping up is: How much better can things go the second time around?

The seminal alternative-rock band of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, which helped set the stage for Nirvana and a major commercial breakthrough of punk-rooted rock music, is drawing significantly bigger crowds on its reunion tour than it captured originally.

“It’s actually amazing the amount of interest there’s been in the Pixies all this year,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert industry tracking magazine Pollstar. “Unless I slept through their heyday, I don’t remember them being this popular when they were around the first time.”

Case in point: Shortly before breaking up in 1991 because of tensions among the band members, the Pixies headlined in Los Angeles at the 2,300-capacity Hollywood Palladium. The group had headlined the 6,200-seat Universal Amphitheatre a year earlier. Now it has two dates at the 6,100-seat Greek Theatre, Sept 22 and 23, for which presale tickets are available today via the band’s website, www .pixiesmusic.com.

That’s been typical of the size of venues that singer Frank Black, bassist Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Lovering have played recently. The buzz began with their performance in May at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, says Marc Geiger, senior vice president at the William Morris Agency and the Pixies’ longtime booking agent.

“It’s been like a really good wine that aged well and its value increased, and theirs has increased by a factor of eight to 10,” Geiger says, noting the Pixies will play to about 25,000 fans over three nights in San Francisco, 18,000 in Chicago and 10,000 in Toronto.

The one down note in an otherwise up year was the cancellation of the Lollapalooza tour, which the Pixies were to join at a few stops, but even that had its positive spin for the band.

“What I’d heard was that the dates the Pixies were doing were selling the best of any on the tour,” says Bongiovanni. “It may well be that their legend has grown among the younger kids because of bands who looked up to the Pixies and gave them an aura of coolness to a whole new generation.”

Adds Geiger, “The reunion factor mixes with time and makes for a lot of people who want to see them because they never got a chance to see them before.”

How long will the good vibes last?

“They’ve always said that it was to be a one-year thing, and let’s see how it goes,” Geiger says. “So far it’s going better than we had thought. I think they’re going to keep working now, because it is going well and they are enjoying themselves. But that’s just a guess.”