The playing was acoustic, the audience was electric

The most remarkable aspect of Bela Fleck’s performance on the Acoustic Planet Tour Vol. II at the Wiltern LG on Saturday night wasn’t the fact that he was playing jazz on a banjo (remarkable as that may have been). Nor that he was doing so in a quartet that functioned with the smooth interactivity that comes only from long, grinding months of touring together.

What was most impressive was that the performance was greeted with the shouts, cheers, cries and physicality one usually sees only at rock, rap and blues concerts. But the boisterous environment in the packed house didn’t come without a musical price.

Fleck and the Flecktones -- longtime associates Jeff Coffin on saxophones, flute and clarinet, Victor Wooten on bass and Future Man (Roy Wooten) on electronic percussion and drums -- concentrated most of their set on selections from their recently released CD, “The Hidden Land.”

On the upside, that choice resulted in musically persuasive selections such as Fleck’s gently melodic “Rococo” and the tender “Who’s Got Three,” among others. On the downside, much of the music’s subtle interplay -- some of the best material the Flecktones have recorded -- was buried in the roaring, high-decibel level of the sound and the boisterousness of the crowd.

That was especially problematic in the interplay between Fleck and Coffin, who tossed musical ideas back and forth with the conversational intimacy of two lifelong friends -- with most of the ideas losing their subtle qualities as they merged into audio clamor.

Each player was far more effective with the more simplistic aspects of his playing -- Fleck with his astonishing, fast-fingered virtuosity, Coffin with his simultaneous playing of two saxophones, a la Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

The show, which also featured the Yonder Mountain String Band and guitarist Keller Williams, was a nonstop stream of songs, with numbers blending into each other, and players sitting in with one another’s groups.

Keller, a virtual one-man band, used both spontaneous and preset loops, playing three or four different stringed instruments (including a 10-string guitar) and an assortment of percussion, plus tossing in vocals for good measure. Like the jaunty bluegrass-tinged music of the Yonder Mountain String Band, he added an entertaining, foot-tapping quality to an evening in which some otherwise fascinating music got lost in the mix.