Akron/Family @ Rock and Roll Hotel

The "freak" element came into play as soon as they started picking up instruments from their Table o' Toys. These toys included everything from the recorders and Casio keyboards that felt like a throwback to elementary school days to various pedals and vocoders. Suddenly, the ambience was no longer that of a slowly trickling river, but of a haunted forest, complete with screaming banshees.

Then suddenly, Akron/Family had no more interest in solely impressing the audience. Singer/bassist Miles Seaton implored with varying degrees of exasperation that the audience join in on the party. The band has been known to bring other musicians onstage with them but as Seaton noted, "There's only three of us up here!" and particularly called out the underage portion of the crowd to start the party in the audience. They did their part by playing a ridiculously energetic trio of "Ed is a Portal," "Love, Love, Love" and "Everyone is Guilty," complete with psychedelic solos that would have made Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd proud. But the improvisations were never self-indulgent and were frequently punctuated with call-and-response sing-a-longs and calls to wave hands in the air.

The band honestly could've ended with their cool-down a cappella number, "Last Year," but the audience was fired up enough to ask for a return and the rest were staring at the stage with a sort of befuddled wonder. After a quick performance of "Auld Lange Syne" (yes, really), Akron/Family launched into fan favorite "Raising the Sparks," which took the set past the midnight mark. It was never easy to tell whether Akron/Family had just played one very long song or run three songs together. But considering their seamless ability to merge styles and play off of each other, the three men clearly call themselves "Family" for a reason.