BY ROXANA HADADI / PHOTOS BY ADAM FRIED

For anyone who was attending the sold-out Cage the Elephant show at the 9:30 Club Feb. 25 and was only there to hear their hit single, "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," they needed to wait through half the band's set to get there. But if you didn't enjoy that waiting game, then there probably is something wrong with you.

Although the bluesy, punky rock band from Kentucky is best known for that song, which has been featured in everything from commercials for the video game "Borderlands" to the TNT drama Leverage, they proved to be capable of so much more. Delivering an electric, thrash-heavy set of 11 tracks, plus an encore, lead singer Matt Shultz and Co. galvanized the audience into a distinct frenzy, a mass of frantic fans who were all too happy to cradle Shultz whenever he jumped into the crowd. Which, to put it mildly, was a lot.

Sure, there were prepubescent kids running around in Ed Hardy sneakers and Avril Lavigne-like accessories, but the audience also had a solid number of older fans, those in their late 20s or above, including a few federal-looking guys who could have been the Smoking Man's stunt double. Oh Mulder, where art thou?

But back to the topic at hand: Things started off with first opener Morning Teleportation, whose weird name underscores their strange - and almost unbearable - sound. A mix of psychedelic influences and dissonant sounds and static, the Portland group's sound wasn't aided by their high-energy performance. All you need to know is that they wore sequined jackets straight out of Golden Girls and had a friend who wandered through the crowd in a Mad Hatter-esque tophat. Not acceptable.

More enjoyable, though, was second opener As Tall as Lions, a New York band delivering a catchier, more alternative rock-influenced vibe. As photographer Adam Fried noted, many of their tracks sounded like "seagulls and crickets," but As Tall as Lions also displayed a juxtaposition of melodically thumping drums and guitars and grandiose, soaring vocals, almost like if the Gin Blossoms dropped the endearing-lover-boy act and got bitter and realistic. For example, "That's What You Get," has lyrics like "Darling, you look twisted/ Could you see yourself with a better man?/ Darling, it's sadistic/ I know I caught your eye, I'm optimistic," while "A Soft Hum" is similarly musing: "But no one gets what they really want/ We love only when it's convenient/ We act like we know more than we know/ We treat love like it's something you own."

And though their set dragged a bit during some of the ballads, like the tediously slow "Lost My Mind," As Tall as Lions was certainly a step up from Morning Teleportation, and helped hype the crowd up into a bouncier, more enthusiastic mood when it came time for Cage the Elephant. Only 10 minutes late to their 10 p.m. set time, the band burst onto the stage, giving the crowd a live reenactment of Rob Gordon's "High Fidelity" rule about mixtapes.

First, start off with a bang: The thrashing, screamo fury of "Tiny Little Robots," which involves Shultz demanding, "Are you scared?/ Are you scared?/ Are you scared?" as the album's chorus, then take it up a notch, which the band did with "Lotus." Though the track started off with a slower feel - with lots of discordant reverb - it soon developed into a swift kick in the face, with politically charged lyrics ("A billion faces running round my head/ All got opinions, but they don't mean shit/ Keep droppin' bombs until the whole world's dead"), accentuated by Shultz's no-holds-barred performing style. Climbing up on speakers and screaming into kids' faces? Yes, please!

And maybe because the group only performed about 10 other tracks - basically, they ripped through their self-titled debut album, which was released last May - Cage the Elephant was able to keep the energy up the whole time. Obviously, the show's highest points came during the group's singles, such as "Back Against the Wall," which was the night's first audience sing-along, and "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," after which small pockets of the sold-out crowd left (jumping on that bandwagon sure is easy), but the galloping pace and jagged feel of the set was certainly a welcome surprise.

Case in point: The first song the group performed during their encore, "In One Ear," includes the line, "In one ear/ And right out the other" - but after such a thrilling set, that's certainly not the case. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite. Oh, and the numerous half-naked members of Morning Teleportation and As Tall as Lions who joined Cage the Elephant onstage for their encore? Definitely awkward, but not distracting enough to take away from the group's hesitation-free style - and that's a compliment.