First, they set phasers to stun, then they let loose

A Taking Back Sunday concert is about the words -- all the finger-pointing, self-abasing, painfully confessional lyrics that make up this emo genre, and Friday’s sold-out, all-ages crowd at the Hollywood Palladium screamed them so faithfully that they sometimes drowned out the buzz-saw punk rock.

But the wildly popular quintet must be used to this by now, for the band members never engaged in any crowd antics, instead simply uncoiling with an explosive passion that swung from inchoate angst to vindictive anger.

From the opening song, “Set Phasers to Stun,” and through a set that included favorites mushrooming out of their new album, “Where You Want to Be,” lead vocalist Adam Lazzara and new-for-this-album guitarist Fred Mascherino, formerly of Breaking Pangaea, displayed their unique duetting style. Lazzara is definitely the lead, selling every song with his twitching, stomping, hair-flopping gyrations, but Mascherino sings large parts, adding a constant background voice, often seeming to answer the questions asked in the song.

On “A Decade Under the Influence,” for instance, Lazzara chanted, “Anyone will do tonight,” while Mascherino followed with “Close your eyes, just settle, settle,” to a dramatic effect unusual for this kind of roaring punk rock. They sounded good even through the Palladium’s famously murky sound, and these vocals are part of their secret for finding a slightly more poppy seam in emo’s dirgey underground.

This is still the rock ‘n’ roll of transformation and triumph, of becoming something other than oneself for one night, but emo is a kind of Freudian encounter, the epiphany of publicly naming one’s ailment. The song “You’re So Last Summer,” from Sunday’s debut album, confides total dependence, saying: “You could slit my throat, and with my one last gasping breath I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt.”