POP MUSIC REVIEW : They Might Be Nerds, but Giants Are Sweet

John Flansburgh and John Linnell look like partners in a high school science fair project rather than a rock band. They named their group after the play and the movie “They Might Be Giants,” their primary instrumentation is guitar and accordion and they sing in flat, earnest voices about mammal biology, aspects of scale, space travel and the interior obsessions of the archetypal loner.

When nerds form a rock act, the results are usually smug and smirking, but They Might Be Giants seemed entirely sweet and genuine last week at the Wiltern Theatre, where the New Yorkers’ buoyant music was embraced intensely by a young, high-energy crowd, only a couple of whom wore the fezzes that once were the duo’s fashion statement.

There were both Beach Boys lift and punk drive in the music, the prime antecedents of which are pop’s adenoidal innocent Jonathan Richman and ‘60s folk revisionists the Holy Modal Rounders. The show was much more musically active than the Johns’ last tour, when they were accompanied by tapes and samples rather than a live band.

This time, the presence of three additional musicians made possible such moments as a sizzling, polka-flavored jam, a version of Edgar Winter’s instrumental chestnut “Frankenstein” and a “stump the band” segment that yielded an initially halting, ultimately triumphant “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”

“Tonight Show” band alumnus Sal Marquez contributed some stinging trumpet riffs and singer Syd Straw sat in with both the headliners and opening act Freedy Johnston, whose haunted, quietly maniacal folk-rock received an ambiguous response: Some clapped along and cheered, others did the wave. Welcome to L.A.