If indie rock has an answer to the jam band ethos embodied by groups like the Grateful Dead and Phish, Yo La Tengo made a strong case for themselves at their back-to-back Wonder Ballroom shows last weekend. The Hoboken, New Jersey, trio played two sets each night without an opening act—a hallmark of the jam band style—resulting in performances that spanned two-plus hours, 20-plus songs, and 30-plus years of Yo La Tengo's consistently brilliant discography.

This link between what may or may not be wildly different scenes and fanbases, however, is not entirely unexpected. Their music has always had the improvisational quality of jam bands—everything from Ira Kaplan’s 10-minute guitar epics to the songwriting process behind their muted new LP There’s a Riot Going On features elements of spontaneity. At these shows, Yo La Tengo covered both sonic extremes, as well as much of what lies in between.

This in-between sonic area, excitingly for fans who know their deeper cuts intimately, manifested itself in a number of ways. On Saturday, in addition to I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One favorites “Green Arrow,” “Stockholm Syndrome,” and the especially beloved “Autumn Sweater,” the band pulled from Electr-o-pura, Painful, and several other records to round out the setlist. The audience’s huge reaction to “Lewis”—a fan request from their 1987 sophomore LP New Wave Hot Dogs—and Yo La Tengo’s willingness to play it in the first place was a touching testament to the devout followers of a band that knows how deep the connection to a song can run.

This is evidenced by their seemingly endless repertoire of covers. Saturday night Yo La Tengo took on a Fugs song and Todd Rundgren’s “I Saw the Light,” the latter because Rundgren and his band Utopia were playing a show at Revolution Hall that same evening (at which he would in turn cover one of their songs, Kaplan assured the crowd). The statement might have been tongue-in-cheek, but in any truly utopian world, every band on every stage really is playing the music of Yo La Tengo.