Reunion tours are delicate affairs. If your band manages to sort through all the layers of dysfunction that probably caused you to stop wanting to play music together to begin with, and manages to do so without blowing the tour budget on group therapy to get there, you still have to deal with the questions of whether anything you said before is still relevant and if you still have the guts to say it with the same fire. For every Mission of Burma or Wire, whose rebirths have been nothing short of Phoenix-like, there’s a Psychedelic Furs-style retread to remind us that sometimes it’s best for the dead to just stay dead. And let’s not even discuss the “Doors of the Twenty-First Century” or the “Who’s Left” debacle that recently rode into town. So one can be excused for approaching Tuesday night’s reunion of indie-rock heroes Sebadoh at the 9:30 Club with more than a little trepidation.

Original bandmembers Eric Gaffney, Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein have met with some mixed reviews on this tour so far. That, combined with standard reunion-phobic apprehension, just barely excuses the surprisingly modest crowd (though D.C. should still be ashamed they didn’t treat Gang of Four to a packed house for their reunion a couple of years back – there was really no excusing that one). But on Tuesday, it became apparent that either previous reports of their new shows being lackluster were greatly exaggerated, or the trio was feeling particularly invigorated by a springtime drive to see the cherry blossoms, because the band didn’t disappoint. Far from it. And those jaded few who did find themselves yawning at the band were at least provided the diversion of the Sebadoh Superfan, whose drunken fist-pumping, jumping, and shouting-along were endless entertainment to all except perhaps those immediately adjacent.