It began with noise. The kind of fun-with-feedback session usually reserved for the closing moments of a Lemonheads show. Gratuitous and prolonged when, like a defiant spawn of the dissonance and cacophony in the air, came the opening chord progression of “Hospital” - so orderly, so sharp, a melody so saccharine it shouldn’t have tasted so genuinely sweet.

And thus began a litany of Dando-penned classics performed with greater exuberance and conviction than at any time in recent memory. (And there have been plenty, by the way, with The Lemonheads in the midst of a seemingly perpetual tour since releasing a little noticed and under appreciated collection of new songs nearly two years ago).

The band (a different line-up than the one that played Brooklyn just this past summer) dropped “Confetti” on a modest but reverent crowd who sang back-up on perhaps the most sing-alongable line in a catalog full of involuntary sing-alongs:

“He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could’ve.”

Come on! Evan Dando is an indie rock savant. Cagey and seemingly stricken with ADD (he nervously consulted the set-list all night long), his noodlings meander and his banter rarely makes sense. But the brilliant simplicity of his craft – echoing the three-chord likes of Tom Petty and Paul Simon (to whom he famously paid homage with a chart-making ‘92 cover of “Mrs. Robinson”) – is evident in a relentlessly tuneful string of songs recorded in the pin-up days between 1992 and 1995.

“We have to laugh to look at each other. We have to laugh cuz we’re not alone.” An illustrative pair of lines from “Drug Buddy” – always my favorites, and as sadly beautiful sung live today as they were on record fifteen years ago - are as evocative as they are concise. The essence of Gen X - coming of age in the recession-stricken, heroin-addled early 90s - summed up in seventeen monosyllabic words (save one).

Evan’s respect for the architecture of those words is impeccable. His on-stage adherence to the crispness of consonants, the stretching of syllables – every vocal nuance – defies the post-burn outs child-like lack of focus when not in the throes of performance. Like I said… savant.

As has been customary of late, Evan dismissed the band for a time and put on a one-man show within a show. Sans waist-level mic, he awkwardly played the guitar at shoulder-height, alternately amplifying both his instrument and his vocals on the appropriately cute and clever “Being Around.” Roadie to the rescue!

Evan traded the electric for an acoustic and hushed the hall with this critic’s favorite-among-favorites, “The Outdoor Type.”

“I can’t go away with you on a rock climbing weekend.
What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again?
It’s just as well I’m not invited, I’m afraid of heights.
I lied about being the outdoor type.”

Seriously? Like I said… savant.

“Jesus Rides With Me” closed out the solo set and the band returned to the stage for “It’s A Shame About Ray.” Evan remarked that he’s never really known how to play the title track to his most seminal work despite the fact that he’s been doing so now for fifteen years.

At another point in the more playful than usual set-list, the guys reached back to 1989 for a selection from an album called Lick. How is it possible, I thought, for The Lemonheads to have a career that stretches back nearly twenty years? Granted, fifteen or sixteen of them don’t really count. Still, The Beatles conquered the world and imploded in the space of six!

Whitney Pastorek, I feel you! (Obscure reference, I know. See p.50 of the year end issue of EW on newsstands now).