Okay so maybe the title of this post is a bit of an exaggeration. But, hyperbole aside, there really were moments during last night’s concert—Okkervil River’s second at the venue in two days—when I feared the aging wooden floor was going to collapse under the weight of so many furiously jumping fans. It didn’t happen, of course, but if it had, it would have (almost) been worth it: Following two borderline boring openers (Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears, and Crooked Fingers), Okkervil River played a spectacular show.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears started off the night with a bluesy, energetic, and somewhat generic set that got a few members of the audience nodding—if not much else—as a crowd began to filter in. Crooked Fingers, an hour or so later, was a definite step back. Even the frontman’s threat to slit the throats of anyone (yikes!) who didn’t buy the band’s newest album neglected to wake up the audience, the combined side conversations of which nearly drowned out the band.

Finally, at 10:20 p.m. or so, Okkervil River came on, opening with a quick rendition of “The President’s Dead” that transitioned seamlessly into “Black,” which set the tone for most of the rest of the show: well-performed, loud, and angry.

The only problem with Okkervil River, at least in recorded form, is that their otherwise uniformly awesome music can occasionally verge on the (gasp!) emo. Interestingly, this is not the case live—or at least it wasn’t last night. Even their most emo-esque numbers (”All the Latest Toughs,” “For Real”) came spiked with enough seemingly genuine anger and desperation that any whiny-ness was negated. The same sentiments were there in the non-emo songs, like the older “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene,” “Unless It’s Kicks,” “John Allyn Smith Sails,” and “So Come Back, I Am Waiting,” and the new “Starry Stairs,” “Pop Lie,” and “Calling and Not Calling My Ex.” No matter the reason for frontman Will Sheff’s indignation, he was right to exploit it: the raw emotion present during almost the entire set seemed to unite the crowd, who screamed along with Sheff’s love-lost lyrics. And danced, hard enough to shake the building.

Some of the slower songs, like “Black Sheep Boy,” were less inspired, and much of the audience seemed to agree.

Okkervil River brought The Honey Bears, three vest-wearing instrumentalists from the first opener, back onstage to assist in a couple of songs, such as “A Girl in Port”—they made all the difference, and seemed almost to fit in better with the headliner than with their own band.

Sheff began a three-song encore with a solo rendition of “Title Track,” and the rest of the band followed, wrapping up with “Blue Tulip” and “Another Radio Song.” In the end, despite the occasional lull, the only disappointing aspect of the show was that it wasn’t longer.

(All photos by me. Please excuse my inexcusably bad flash.)