Recap Andrew Bird at Pabst Theater (Friday night)

Whether he's playing to half-empty coffeehouses or sold-out theaters, Andrew Bird has always been a natural-born live performer who transcends the nervous perfectionism he displays in the studio. Such was the case Friday night, when Bird settled in for the first of two nights at the Pabst Theater. He was joined by a trio of appropriately accomplished backing players—longtime partner-in-crime Martin Dosh supplied a virtuosic combination of keyboards and drums, Jeremy Ylvisaker reassuring lead guitar, and Mike Lewis steady bass lines. The impeccable accompaniment melded gracefully to lift Bird's trademark loops of frenetic violin and warm-blanket croons to surprisingly boisterous new heights.

A friend refers to Bird's onstage articulations as "going home"—meaning he seems to retreat to a private sanctum that neither bandmates nor audience members are allowed to get anywhere near. Backlit by a simple blue screen and oversized gramophones, Bird went home the moment he stepped on stage, his head swaying to a secret inner rhythm before the whistling and glockenspiel swept in for the opening track, "Fiery Crash." While he favored his two most recent releases, this year’s Noble Beast and 2007’s Armchair Apocrypha, for most of the 20-song set, Bird treated the rapturous crowd to a new song: "Lusitania," a gorgeous, understated ballad, which he began with his eyes squeezed shut, singing of shipwrecks and heartbreak as though they were one in the same.

Nearly unrecognizable through a haze of ramped-up, rocked-out background instrumentals and off-kilter vocals, "Opposite Day" utilized samplers and loops to build a creepy melody Bird bounded into carrying only his violin and hollow-body guitar. True to form, halfway through a verse, he kicked off his impossibly glittery shoes to play the rest of the set clad only in socks—which long-time fans will remember as an endearing in-concert tradition. "Effigy," an homage to the lonely souls who venture out against their own best judgment only to find themselves alienating everyone around them, hit especially close to home when Bird reminded us simply that we're all one step above being that bum alone at the end of the bar: "It could be you, it could be me."

For the duration of the night, Bird filled the room with swirling samples and lyrics that ran the gamut between heartrending and hilarious, and only seemed to touch ground for the occasional glockenspiel interjection or frenetic hair tousling. Just before the close of the show, after a version of "Fake Palindromes" (likely the world's only seemingly romantic ode to trepanation) was inexplicably halted and restarted 45 seconds in, Bird grabbed his violin and thrust it toward the ceiling. Whether it was in frustration or triumph, it inspired a standing ovation that felt a whole lot like going home.