Pixies to play ‘Doolittle’ album in its entirety at Hard Rock Hotel

Joey Santiago, guitarist for the Pixies, is saying something he might not have in 1993:

"This is the best gig in the world."

The band helped define "alternative rock" in the late 1980s and early '90s. But the diverse personalities responsible for the group's eclectic, off-kilter sound also made them prone to infighting, which eventually took the whole thing down.

Now Santiago and his bandmates -- frontman Black Francis, singer-bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering -- are older and, more importantly, wiser: "Wise enough to know this is a very good thing to be doing."

Indeed. Reunited for bursts of touring since 2004, the Pixies have played the big-crowd festivals such as Coachella and Isle of Wight. Their current tour continues to celebrate the "Doolittle" album that marked their high-water point, and they plan to play the whole thing in Saturday's show at the Hard Rock Hotel.

By contrast, the group's off years found Francis -- in his alter-ego as Frank Black -- playing the tiny Legends Lounge in northeast Las Vegas in 2000.

The Pixies are "what everybody would rather be doing right now. This is a priority," Santiago attests. But if new material is what separates a nostalgia-driven reunion from a present-tense working band, the quartet is still looking back.

"Everybody keeps asking" about a new album, he admits, but "you can't really force that. It has to happen in an organic manner."

There's no magic happening at sound check?

"We don't do sound check," he says with a laugh.

Maybe that's part of his explanation for how the group maintains harmony: "We give each other space."

Back in the '90s, the Boston-born Pixies could be name-dropped the way people use Radiohead today. The group's playfully art-damaged twist on lean, otherwise to-the-point songcraft was an unassailable way to define your music cred. Simply put, it was cool to like the Pixies. But were the Pixies themselves cool?

"We were pretty normal," Santiago says. "Definitely not with the in crowd, other than our music."

Scarcity created demand after the band's 1993 breakup, with champions such as Nirvana's Kurt Cobain fueling the legend. The music itself provided a large umbrella, ranging from the radio-friendly hit "Here Comes Your Man" to proto-grunge ("Wave of Mutilation") to the accessibly weird ("Monkey Gone to Heaven").

"We never tried to be derivative," Santiago says of the group's time-defying sound. "We didn't get influenced by anyone, other than just trying to sound different. If something started to sound derivative, we would take it out."

The Pixies have been opening the show with a 1929 film short by director Luis Bunuel and surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The live sets offer something the band never did in the old days: elaborate visuals and films commissioned to accompany a dozen specific songs.

The visuals "takes the pressure out of us just standing around," Santiago says with a laugh. He admits the group suffered from a lack of stage presence back in the day. "It's just the way we were. Maybe we were nervous."

But no more. "We're just getting goofy up there now."

Santiago was ready to head off to an Atlanta Braves game on this day off from the tour. From Bunuel to baseball, that's the Pixies. And to Santiago, "It doesn't feel like work at all."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.