Cake Adds Some Frosting at Palladium

The title of Cake’s second album, “Prolonging the Magic,” has proven to be prophetic. The record recently passed the half-million mark in sales, already matching the total of the Sacramento quintet’s debut, “Fashion Nugget.” That success has afforded Cake the rare opportunity of taking a double dip in the L.A. market within a short time span, first as a club act four months ago at the Troubadour, then as a headliner in front of 1,500 or so fans at the Hollywood Palladium on Monday.

Because this was the biggest audience Cake’s ever played to in L.A., the band made a few concessions to placate back-of-the-room patrons. Two thrift-store electric candelabra flanked the stage, and a giant motel-art mural of a snow-covered mountain provided a backdrop. More important, Cake elongated some of the song structures of its terse, sardonic anti-love narratives in order to provide a wide enough berth for audience sing-alongs and instrumental breakdowns.

After all, now that such tracks as “Never There” and “Sheep Go to Heaven” are constant KROQ fodder, everyone knew where lead singer John McCrea injected his choice expletives and cutting put-downs, and joined in accordingly. Still, this show was hardly an exercise in arena-rock call-and-response. By calibrating strains of pop, funk, and country into a seamless whole, Cake proved that it could hold a large, youngish crowd’s attention with music that defies simple-minded pop paradigms.