MUSIC REVIEW : Folksy Hicks Can Still Strum Hot Licks : ‘Folk-Swing’: Dan Hicks and his Acoustic Warriers deliver toe-tapping music.

For almost a quarter-century, Dan Hicks has been getting away with the improbable: performing upbeat tunes with a downbeat demeanor that, somehow, intensifies the music’s giddy energy.

On Thursday night, Hicks and his cheekily named Acoustic Warriors treated a large, appreciative crowd at the Belly Up Tavern to two long sets of what he calls “folk-swing.” And, as is the norm at a Hicks show, the audience seemed to have more fun than the main attraction.

Most of the evening’s song list was taken from recordings made years ago by Hicks’ previous band, the Hot Licks, who peaked, artistically and commercially, with the 1971 album, “Where’s the Money?” That sound remains a jaunty juncture of jug-band music, Django Reinhardt’s “le jazz hot” and the Western-swing of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

The enduring charm of Hicks’ material can be traced to a finely balanced blend of zippy tunefulness, wryly humorous lyrics (occasionally edged with poignancy), and Hicks’ deadpan delivery.

On record, the first two of those elements prevail, but in concert, it is Hicks’ anti-charismatic style that sets the tone. Thursday night, he wore a dark, Western-style shirt and baggy slacks, and a facial expression that ranged from dour to slightly less dour. At times, one wanted to hold a mirror to the mustachioed singer’s nostrils to see if he was still breathing, but it’s hard to do that when your toes are tapping uncontrollably.

The Warriors created an almost mystical atmosphere by opening with the 1969 song, “Canned Music”--a sensual, mid-tempo ballad that should be required theme music for balmy Sunday afternoons. Hicks demonstrated his keen musical equilibrium by following with the quirky, swingin’ “My Mother Died From Asbestos, My Father’s Name Was Estus”--without destroying the soft-focus mood already set.

On this and other up-tempo tunes, such as the countryish “Payday Blues” and the nervous skiffle tune, “Walkin’ One and Only,” Hicks seemed less a bandleader than a frontier sheriff lettin’ the deputies blow off a little steam. Fiddler-mandolinist Brian Godchaux, stand-up bassist Richard Saunders, and guitarist Adam Levy were up to the assignment. They supplied brisk, nimble-fingered counterpoint to Hicks’ guitar-strumming and provided a lush, understated harmonic cushion for his vocal melodies.

But it was the mostly stationary Hicks who commanded one’s attention. Because of his comatose stage presence and dry, unadorned singing style, Hicks at least appears emotionally disengaged from his music. Uncolored by their author’s presentation, Hicks’ tunes seem spontaneously generated, suspended in mid-air like specters of music past.

Accordingly, an interpretation of an early Jimmie Rodgers tune and sprightly readings of two Hicks chestnuts--”Where’s the Money?” and “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away”--evoked a simpler, happier time in America. Even Hicks got carried away in the kinetic gaiety of the moment. Holding his torso still, he initiated a slow-motion, alternating side-step movement with his feet. When the Warriors joined in, the band suggested one of those trick-edited films in which cows appear to do-si-do.

Especially during the first set, Hicks spoke to the audience less than usual, but when he did, his drollery was as obtuse as ever. Surveying the club, which was in its cabaret configuration of tables and chairs, Hicks mumbled, “This is kind of a strange place for the presentation of our particular . . . art form.” He then paused, and, as though concluding a brief, silent conversation with himself, added, “OK.”

During the introduction of another tune, Hicks referred to the evening as “this splendiferous occasion.” Sardonics aside, several hours of witty, leg-pumping music made it exactly that.