By Paul Robicheau

At Brighton Music Hall, Boston’s avant-punk legends capped Mark Kates’s label anniversary with a surprisingly potent four-song set and a tribute to the late Jeff “Monoman” Conolly.

Mission of Burma at Brighton Music Hall. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Hope and expectations ran high at Brighton Music Hall on Friday. All three members of Boston’s legendary Mission of Burma were performing with their separate projects to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Fenway Recordings, the label and artist-management outlet run by Mark Kates. Would Burma, essentially retired for the past decade, reunite onstage for their longtime manager — or at least make cameos with one another’s bands?

A recent precedent made one wonder whether the odds had increased or decreased. Mission of Burma had played a few songs at a March fundraiser at the Middle East for Lyres frontman Jeff “Monoman” Conolly as he battled cancer. Conolly then bounded out to join Burma for a howling take on the Stooges’ “1970.”

The answer became evident after Friday’s scheduled sets, when Clint Conley, Roger Clark Miller, and Peter Prescott began reshuffling stage equipment for their Mission of Burma set. Conley put aside the guitar he had just played with his early-aughts group Consonant and picked up his original bass. Prescott, who had manned guitar and electronics with his new trio Minibeast, repositioned himself at the drum kit.

“We’re the worst-kept secret in Allston-town,” Conley piped, and the avant-punk heroes eased into “Tremelo,” built around the pulsations of guitarist Miller’s vintage effect box, like a slow-to-develop warm-up jam. Then came a real treat: the ruminative buildup of “Einstein’s Day,” in which Miller wound through a psychedelic solo before a final crescendo stoked by Conley’s bass and Prescott’s drums. Burma’s punk side broke out in the slashing, stop-and-start punch of “The Ballad of Johnny Burma,” and vocal duties flipped from Miller to Conley for the classic “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.”

Burma took that four-song spin at a more deliberate pace than it had back in the day, yet the band’s delivery proved surprisingly intact, considering that the players had given “Einstein’s Day” and half of “Revolver” only one run-through during soundcheck, Miller said later. That 15-minute Burma segment held together better than the band’s unrehearsed turn at the March fundraiser for Conolly, who died July 31.

Mission of Burma with Chris Brokaw (and Keith Seidel) honor Jeff Conolly at Brighton Music Hall. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Consonant guitarist Chris Brokaw and Minibeast drummer Keith Seidel then joined Burma as Prescott stepped to a center-stage mic to lead a stomping version of “Don’t Jump Me, Mother” by Conolly’s old band, DMZ. “It could go sideways, which is fitting,” Conley, who grew up with the mercurial Conolly in Connecticut, playfully warned before the tribute. “Down under water, you can feel the weight,” Prescott sang while Miller turned horn player, blowing flurries on cornet. “Oh, understand!”

Yet the night-capping Burma coup was a bonus to what was already a fabulous celebration. Kates launched Fenway Recordings upon returning to his hometown after a ’90s tenure in A&R at Geffen Records in L.A., where he signed Beck and worked with Sonic Youth and Nirvana before leaving to run the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label. Through Fenway, Kates has managed MGMT and the Cribs, among other local and international acts, and recently brought Michael Stipe aboard as a client.

Friday’s concert, free with advance tickets and with suggested donations to the artists and the Allston-Brighton Food Pantry, featured a slide show of artists associated with Fenway Recordings over the years. It was a nice touch, if not ideally situated: its position behind the performers and its constant rotation could distract from the bands at hand.

The night’s considerable lineup also included a three-quarters reunion of the great early-aughts band Read Yellow, when drummer Paul Koelle joined guitarists Evan Kenney and Jesse Vuona’s group Big Time for a few songs.

Consonant seemed well rehearsed for its own reunion, with Conley, Brokaw, and bassist Winston Braman deftly joined by drummer Luther Gray, better known for his jazz work. Conley settled into his best singing within the more open, darkly melodic rock of the group’s two albums, culminating in “Blue Story,” where Brokaw brought more slashing counterpoint to his guitar work.

Minibeast with Pete Weiss, Keith Seidel and Peter Prescott at Brighton Music Hall. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Prescott proved to be the Burma member most closely recasting the band’s chaotic edges in his standout current outfit, Minibeast, increasingly active both on record and in live shows. He served as a loose cannon, ranting in Dada-esque fashion, fiddling with his sonic play station, and attacking his guitar in feedback-laced spurts, buoyed by bassist Pete Weiss and especially drummer Seidel, whose cyclical, propulsive full-kit pounding was sometimes overwhelming in the best possible way.

Miller has his own impressive, politically tilted rock trio, the Trinary System. But he launched Friday’s post-Burma sets solo on electric guitar, in the rough guise of a singer-songwriter, delivering brainy cleverness that likely went over the heads of casual listeners. He included a myth song from the new album The Green Man, Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair” (with a lyric by James Joyce), and newer songs “Mozart Never Played for the Door” and “Ape Intelligence.” The latter pairs phrases including “Actual Idiots” and “Applauding Imbecility” in its parody of AI.

AI can never replicate Mission of Burma, which on Friday suggested that, if not equal, its separate parts still come closer to the sum than one might expect. Naturally, any occasion for the band’s members to share a stage again will be gladly accepted.

Paul Robicheau served more than 20 years as contributing editor for music at the Improper Bostonian, in addition to writing and photography for The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He was also the founding arts editor of Boston Metro.