Starting at the very conservative hour of eight in the evening this past Sunday, La Zona Rosa played host to Devendra Banhart and his merry-makers, The Fat Boys (no, not those Fat Boys), and one of their “favorite musicians in the cosmos,” as Banhart put it, opener Jana Hunter.

Photo of Banhart courtesy Marco Bruni on Flickr. If you have photos from this show, tag them "Austinist"!

Jad Fair was mysteriously tacked onto the bill and then summarily dropped, so Hunter began the evening with her tunes, many of which came off of her new album There’s No Home. Alone save for her electric guitar and effects pedals, Hunter played a considerably low-key set, which was not a shock given the somber mood of much of her new material. As unassuming as they come, Hunter’s face was covered by a baseball cap, and she murmured her thanks between songs. Her voice, however, is anything but inconspicuous – lifted, it sounds like, from the throat of a soulful '60s folkie. After playing numbers like “Valkyries” and experimenting with looping guitar lines, Hunter politely left the stage as the guitar continued to ring out.

With his rascally beard and psychedelic leanings, Devendra Banhart can't help but be the voice for a new generation of hippie-chic, incense-carrying, flowery-dress donning boys and girls, many of whom eagerly smoked pot in anticipation during the forty minutes it took to check four guitars and three mics for Banhart’s portion of the evening. After a roadie set everything up just so, Banhart and his band took to the stage with little fanfare, instead opting for a few beautiful, acoustic opening numbers with Banhart on acoustic guitar.

Over the next hour and forty minutes, Banhart and his band stretched their wings and took on a number of well-trodden staples like “At the Hop” and new numbers off of his September release Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon like “Bad Girl.” While it’s natural to speculate that Banhart might not put on as engaging and personal of a show as he does solo than with the five-piece Spiritual Bonerz backing him up, the band’s outright enthusiasm, skill, and enjoyable stage performance were captivating. Instead of hogging the spotlight, Banhart took time to introduce the band (through a protracted process that took the entire set) as they covered songs by members Andy Cabic (also of Vetiver), Noah Georgeson, and Greg Rogove - all of which were impressive. The crowd also learned that the Spiritual Bonerz were temporarily changing their name to The Fat Boys and/or Sorry We’re (Not) Pancakes, the latter supposedly taken from the name of a restaurant here in Austin but which was more likely a joke, misreading, or hallucination on their part.

The full-on Fat Boys experience was a little bit Os Mutantes with even a touch of early Santana, but the band resisted all temptations to jam or noodle tiresomely with riffs, instead winning the crowd over with faithful but intriguing renditions of Banhart songs and a few surprises. It’s a safe bet that the performance rivaled even the expectations of the patchouli-soaked fans, maybe not securing spiritual bonerz, but captured attentions and affections all the same.