Stripped-Down Vast Plays With Earthy Impact

Vast’s lush, Gothic-tinged debut album, “Visual Auditory Sensory Theater,” generates lots of elegant gloom and the notion that Jon Crosby--the one-man band behind the music--must be an angst-ridden guy in black, a la the Cure’s Robert Smith. But when Crosby and his three-piece touring band took the stage at the Whisky on Friday, the group put on a remarkably down-to-earth show.

Even with the studio polish stripped away, Crosby’s songs didn’t lose their allure; the spare arrangements and staging (nearly half the set went by before the smoke machine kicked in) only highlighted the solid writing and rock grit underpinning them. Crosby’s intense delivery and self-assured stage presence gave mellower numbers such as “Touched” and a solo acoustic rendering of “You” even greater emotional impact. Samples of Benedictine monk chants and orchestral flourishes that embellish album tracks such as “I’m Dying” were less prominent in the live setting, but the substance and soul of the music were abundantly clear--especially in the passionate ensemble playing during “Temptation” and “Three Doors.”

Spirited as they were, openers Oleander and the Devil Roosevelt couldn’t match the dramatic force of Vast, though the Devil Roosevelt stirred up a compelling set of strong, psychedelia-tinged rock.