BoDeans Perform With a Single-Mindedness

Rarely has an encore provided as sharp a contrast to all that preceded it as did the BoDeans’ first encore number Sunday at the Coach House.

After closing with one more anthem-like number, a rousing version of their recent hit “Closer to Free,” Kurt Neumann and Sammy Llanas returned to the stage with just acoustic guitars in tow.

“We’re gonna try something now,” Llanas informed the crowd, “but you have to be really quiet.” When the fans readily obliged, the two then sang, without microphones, a truly unplugged reading of “It’s Only Love.”

A brief triumph for a smaller, gentler touch.

This scaled-down approach was a welcome, if long overdue, departure. Because to that point in its two-hour-plus performance, the Wisconsin-based BoDeans held tight to their hook-laden but structurally simple songs. The band’s reluctance to vary, even mildly, created one frustratingly monochromatic performance.

*

On the plus side, the quartet’s best songs, particularly “She’s a Runaway” and “Closer to Free,” offered a fine showcase for the BoDeans’ tight musicianship and the splendid, crystalline vocals of front men Llanas and Neumann. A couple of songs from their new “Blend” album--the playful “Hey Pretty Girl” and an examination of sexual abuse, “All I Ever Wanted”--are first-rate additions to the BoDeans catalog.

On “Blend,” former E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici lends a versatile hand, but for the current tour the BoDeans are strictly a traditional guitar-bass-drums ensemble. That’s a shame, because Federici’s accordion playing adds subtle but valuable ingredients on the album--traces of color and personality.

That kind of subtlety was hard to find Sunday night.

During too many songs, including “Count on Me,” “Say About Love,” “Naked,” “The Understanding,” “Feed the Fire” and “Misery,” the BoDeans looked and sounded like arena rockers going for the big bang.

Over the course of the evening, Nick Kitsos’ pounding, in-your-face drums and Neumann’s and Llanas’ ceaseless over-singing ultimately were self-defeating.

This vein-bulging, chest-thumping approach reached its nadir during “The Understanding,” an underdeveloped new song that would have been right at home on an overblown ‘70s rock album such as Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”

Since the BoDeans’ inception in 1986, it has gradually shifted away from its appealing roots-rock origins. Today, its bigger, noisier rock sound leaves little room the kind of elusive, intriguing dynamics that Neumann and Llanas once explored.

In fact, the BoDeans could learn about variety, tone and nuance from its opening act, Paul Cebar & the Milwaukeeans. Serving up a tasty musical stew of funk, R&B;, soul, salsa, swing, conjunto and rock, the veteran Cebar and his newly formed, five-piece backing band moved seamlessly from genre to genre with equal parts skill, enthusiasm and humor.

Cebar drew songs mainly from the band’s new “Upstroke for the Downfolk” release, an album almost as good as his excellent 1993 debut, “That Unhinged Thing.”

Among this upbeat set’s many highlights were “I Ain’t Ready,” a soulful ballad featuring steamy sax fills from Bob Jennings; the funky bass lines and polyrhythms of “Didn’t Leave You No Ladder”; and the betrayal-driven “Please Don’t Tell Me More,” whose protagonist argues that when it comes to cheatin’, ignorance can indeed be a blissful alternative.