For anyone who has seen Brand New in the past year, they know the band has been filling up arenas across the country while promoting their latest album, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. Crazy light shows, drawn-out songs that sometimes don’t quite sound like the album versions and minimal crowd interaction on behalf of the band all add up to a typical Brand New concert.

For fans expecting that kind of show, last night’s concert at the Blender Gramercy Theater in New York City was a disappointment.

But for Brand New fans who’ve known the band since they first formed out of the Long Island scene that launched other pop-punk, emo and indie bands like the Movielife or Taking Back Sunday, last night was a rewind back to 2001, when the band released their debut album, Your Favorite Weapon, on Triple Crown Records and still played small clubs.

Last night’s show celebrated the tenth anniversary of Triple Crown, a New York-based label that has been home to pop-punk and indie bands like Hot Rod Circuit, Hit the Lights, The Dear Hunter and Northstar. The concert was also a benefit for the FealGood Foundation, a non-profit organization spreading awareness about the health issues of 9/11 first responders.

Opening up the show were two of the Triple Crown’s current bands. Boston’s The Receiving End of Sirens – featuring guest vocals from the singer of Envy on the Coast – played an intense rock set while Long Island’s As Tall As Lions mellowed things out with more infectious and melancholy sing-alongs. Both bands were well-received, although judging by the crowd’s t-shirts and hoodies, the fans were really there for the headliner.

After a guest appearance from a former member of Northstar, singer-songwriter Kevin Devine teamed up with Brand New singer Jesse Lacey for a folk-y, countrified version of the band’s morbid dirge, “Jesus Christ,” from The Devil and God. Lacey warned, “This will be the only new song you hear tonight, and it’s not going to sound like you think.” Surprisingly, it worked.

And true to his word, in honor of the label that released their first album, Brand New – Lacey, drummer Brian Lane, bassist Garrett Tierney and guitarist Vin Accardi – decided to forego their newer music to play their first album in its entirety, with Lacey’s disclaimer, “We haven’t played any of these songs in seven years, so bear with us.”

From the angst-filled “Jude Law and A Semester Abroad” (the band’s only single from this album) to the high-school anthem “Soco Amaretto Lime,” Brand New ran through all their pop-punk material, giving the show an upbeat mood rarely felt at recent Brand New performances.

And even though Brand New was far from perfect – Lacey needed several tries to start off songs like “Magazines” and “Last Chance to Lose Your Keys” – it didn’t matter, because even when he forgot the words, an impassioned crowd was already singing them for him.

Only two songs managed to slow down the crowd – the plaintive “No Seatbelt Song” (which, with Lacey’s broken-voiced singing, was the only song that sounded remotely like the band’s newer material) and “Soco” – but the rest of the night was a free-for-all, starting with the fist-raising “The Shower Scene,” which opened up a mosh pit that didn’t close for the rest of the night.

The band fed off the crowd’s energy, interacting in a way they never have while touring for Devil and God. And who knew? Jesse Lacey can be funny. The singer kept up a constant conversation between songs, dedicating some to family or friends in attendance, explaining the inspiration of others, laughing, joking around and looking as if he was genuinely enjoying himself.

Towards the end, Brand New switched songs around a bit, running through “Secondary” and “Logan to Government Center” and adding in “Moshi Moshi,” before ending with the hands-down fan-favorite of the night, the bitterly caustic “Seventy Times Seven.”

And at the very end, in what seemed to be a figurative closing of this chapter of the band’s career, Accardi held up his guitar, announcing that it had survived the entire My Favorite Weapon tour, before handing it to the fans, leaving the crowd to fight for a piece of it as the band left the stage.

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