By DCist contributor Graham Hough-Cornwell

When opener Chad VanGaalen first walked out on stage to prepare his one-man band setup, things looked less than promising. Donning one of those white ninja headbands tied around his head, he arranged a bass drum, hi-hat, snare, and drum machine around a short stool and his hollow body electric. I typically run from something like this, jaded by previous unfortunate experiences with openers like VanGaalen’s fellow Canadian New Buffalo and Apples in Stereo side project/farce Marbles.

But when VanGaalen began strumming – and stomping on his kick drum and buzzing into his harmonica – it appeared as though he planned to leave (most of) the bizarre indie pretensions at home and play a warm and engaging set of well-written bedroom pop. Some of his songs ran together a little bit, but his warbling voice and odd sense of humor (non sequitur comments abounded, and he asked the crowd in earnest if D.C. was a state) made what would have been a passable opening into something thoroughly enjoyable and worth checking out.

Seattle’s Band of Horses followed, sporting an expanded five-piece lineup with two guys from the night's first opening band, Simon Dawes, joining in. Immediately, the band got to work on their breakthrough LP, Everything All the Time, appropriately opening with “Part One” (“First Song” would have to wait until later). This led into their lead single, “The Funeral," which unfortunately threatened to come off the rails at nearly every stop-start.

It was an ominous sign for a young band to have their most recognizable song fall flat so early in a set, but BoH bounced back admirably. Their songs tend to be an even mixture of My Morning Jacket’s reverb-heavy all-American rock and the gravity and driving rhythms of the Arcade Fire. But that same gravity is offset by an unassuming stage presence and desire to please that’s refreshingly unpretentious in the increasingly self-important world of indie rock (see Wolf Parade, et al). I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to find “cartharsis” and “life affirmation” a little played out.

But back to the music. It was good and loud without ever coming close to the spectacular. Because their only full-length release to date clocks in at 36 minutes, they rounded out the set with a few covers and some new material. David Allan Coe’s “You Don’t Have to Call Me By My Name” won points as a surprise, but frontman Ben Bridwell’s delivery couldn’t quite build up those points of emphasis in the lyrics that make a tragicomic country song like this one so great. “Monsters," from the LP, was a standout, building from the softer section to a rockin’ and – dare I say it – cathartic finale. “The Great Salt Lake” succeeded for similar reasons but didn’t quite get the space it needed to grow onstage. And they saved their guaranteed crowd-pleaser “Weed Party” – which, in content, is a distant cousin of Cheap Trick’s classic “Surrender” – to close out the proper set.

A solid new song and a fairly inconsequential cover of a song by The New Year led into the night’s finale, a Floydian, but twangy take on Electric Light Orchestra’s "Showdown." In the hands of a band less grounded and tight, the three covers could’ve been overly ironic, or sloppy, or both. But carthasis be damned: Band of Horses proved there’s still nothing more to a good show than tunes, volume, and enthusiasm.