Port O’Brien, Union Hall, Brooklyn

As they take the stage, Port O’Brien make a point of acknowledging they’re Dodgers fans to a room full of Brooklyn-ites, just as the Yankees are smack in the middle of another pennant quest. When greeted with silence, lead vocalist and principal songwriter Van Pierszalowski scans the audience. “We’re going to have a problem,” he says. It’s difficult not to wonder whether the entire show will be just this side of contentious.

Yet as the band begin to play ‘Oslo Campfire’ the playful tension between musicians and audience dissolves under a wash of reverb and salt-drenched imagery. As vocal duties pass to Cambria Goodwin, her voice floats like a spooky Vashti Bunyan lost at sea, riding the band’s rolling groove.

Live, ‘Sour Milk/Salt Water’, the band’s fourth song and the first single off their new album ‘Threadbare’, is augmented by an appropriate synth flourish that stands out more than in the original recording. The song comes to a close and the band begin to re-tune their instruments, giving Van another chance to play with audience expectation, threatening, “We’ll play ‘I Woke Up Today’ later, in Kermit voices.”

He begins the opening haunt of ‘Fisherman’s Son’ with only his guitar as accompaniment before the others slam into the second verse, transforming the song from a bittersweet acknowledgement to a proud rager. Make no mistake, Port O’Brien are an outright rock band masquerading as a group steeped in folk sensibilities.

‘My Will Is Good’ loses some of its more plaintive qualities to a wonderfully brutal, double drum kit assault, as Joey from Sea Wolf joins the band onstage. Unfortunately, the song ends as many of them do that night, with a single downstroke of Van’s guitar and a heavy slap of tom drums. Neither the musicians nor the audience seem ready to let the song go.

Any disappointment is quickly dispelled when the band open a chest of pots and pans, and begin to distribute their bounty among the audience. With a tone of parental concern that flirts with irony, Van makes sure everyone in the audience can yell, hoot, and holler the chorus before beginning the distinctive guitar line of ‘I Woke Up Today’.

There is no Kermit impression, but rather the general mayhem of tin, clank of iron, and jangle of keys, as all in the room howl through the song.