Earlier this week at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange, a Wednesday evening crowd was yanked suddenly into rapt attention by the bullish opener BIG SPECIAL. Taking to the stage with thumbs in the air and a blaring airhorn sample, the duo (Cal Moloney on drums and laptop duties backing up frontman Joe Hicklin), gave the first impression of something akin to a younger and more clownish Sleaford Mods. Over the next 30 minutes, the audience was grabbed by the front of their shirts and wrenched through a bruising performance. BIG SPECIAL veered from stomping post-pop melodies that might bring to mind something like Young Fathers, through a meat grinder of rousing, muscular punk, and built to a finale of raw, sincere, and somehow Country and Western infused, walls of noise. The night was kicked off in huge style by the pair, and although the onstage banter was, to my tastes, a tad too rehearsed, by the end of BIG SPECIAL’s set, the crowd was well and truly warmed up and hungry for the main event.

At last, it was time for the legendary Pixies. Rather than opening the set with one of their countless iconic tracks, Frank Black and company began proceedings with a deep-cut; ‘In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)’, a cover of a song sung in David Lynch’s surrealist horror Eraserhead. The opening song began slow, built to a storm of distortion and feedback, and dropped suddenly into the opening chord of stone cold classic ‘Here Comes Your Man’, which Black let ring out into the audience, who of course responded instantly with a roar of elated approval. It became clear as the band continued that the initial one-two punch between a perhaps unexpected tune and a more venerated number from Pixies lore was indicative of the approach to the whole set.

There was no time for interaction with the audience as we were taken on a career-spanning tour of the Pixies catalogue; instead the songs did the talking. At one point, it seemed a fire was being lit beneath the crowds feet as the band played banger after banger. ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ launched an avalanche of hits, as ‘Wave of Mutilation’, ‘Debaser’, ‘Hey, Mr Grieves’, ‘Caribou’ and finally ‘Tame’ crescendoed into a frantic, shrieking celebration of the legendary 1989 album Doolittle. The room was electric, with jumping, crowd-surfing, and screaming singalongs rippling through the audience. There’re few bands that can claim a better back catalogue than Pixies, and it was a joy to see the band members revel in the passion their songs could wring from the crowd. There was no shying away from the albums released this side of 2000 either, as the band chained ballads ‘Mercy Me’, ‘Chicken’, ‘The Vegas Suite’ and ‘Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)’ together, switching up the tone and settling the audience into a gently swaying mass, conducted by Frank Black’s now crackling baritone. Pixies have never been a band too tied to a particular sonic approach, and the variation of songs here was a testament to the songwriting talent the group have exemplified. The sound in the Corn Exchange was crisp and clear, the lights magnetic, and the air heady and sweaty.

The night ended with an emotional singalong of ‘Where is My Mind?’ – the audience delivering a truly impressive rendition of original bassist Kim Deal’s universally recognisable falsetto backing vocals. Finally ‘Into The White’, a Doolittle b-side, saw the band almost disappear behind a wall of backlit dry-ice. As the last echoes of distortion faded into the bright lights and steam, it was hard not to feel we’d witnessed something rare — not just a band revisiting greatness, but one still evolving, still connecting, and still capable of making walls sweat and hearts race. We left the venue with a poignant reminder ringing in our ears, a reminder that there is a very good reason why Pixies have their name etched in music history.