When the folksy, Phish-y band Rusted Root took the stage in Boston on November 5, one could see from the balcony that singer/percussionist Liz Berlin (the only woman in the group) wore a small, shimmery crown of mylar stars on her head. Cute, yes. Appropriate, sure. But also very symbolic. Earlier that evening, while signing posters and CDs at the Kenmore Square Strawberry's, one particularly enthusiastic fan had presented Liz with the shiny crown. Clearly, Rusted Root is not a band that takes its fans for granted.

And oh, what a variety of fans crowded the smoke-drenched Paradise that night. The amount of white baseball caps rivaled the long peasant skirt supply. A B.C.-capped guy in a leather bomber jacket danced enthusiastically on a table beside--not with or against, but beside--two fair waifs in spaghetti-strap tank tops. Behind this reviewer on the balcony, the over-60 crowd bopped and hummed and probably missed Jerry Garcia a great deal.

But this is not surprising to the average Rusted Root fan. By combining lead singer Mike Glabicki's lucid vibrato and earth-moving wails with the entire band's ethereal usage of percussion instruments, Rusted Root comes across as a deft mixture of the Grateful Dead, a Native American ghost story and perhaps more than a little peyote (even if it was smoked only by the album cover artist.) Translation: if one of Barbara Kingsolver's books was made into a movie, this music would be the sound-track.

The Paradise concert coincided with the release of the group's third LP, a self-titled album that follows the previous albums' tradition of combining catchy yet earthy music with mesa-moving beats. The set list consisted of songs from all three albums, but those from Rusted Root got prime play time. Glabicki's open-hearted voice on the surprisingly sincere "Rising Sun" stood out as a pleasant change from the rest of the folk-rock repertoire. "Magenta Radio" was good clean funky fun, and "Kill You Dead" brought to mind a good old-fashioned hoe-down with a Southwestern flavor. The multitalented bassist Patrick Norman and percussionists Jim Donovan, John Buynak and Jim DiSpirito collaborated on "Agbadza," a piece of intense drumbeats backed up by Berlin's perfectly pitched wails. To finish up the set before coming back for an encore, the group belted out a crowd-rocking rendition of the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which also concludes their latest album and which, surprisingly enough, holds its own against the original version.

But few people who witnessed the show could argue with the fact that the numbers from When I Woke, Rusted Root's first LP, brought out more joy and enthusiasm than anything else that night. "Virtual Reality," from the album Remember and the soundtrack to the movie Twister, got the crowd moving as the first song of the evening, but the slower, funkier rhythms of "Cat Turned Blue" from When I Woke elicited a lot more screams of approval and subsequent groovings. "Laugh as the Sun," the deliciously hypnotic song that followed, proved a little too intense to dance to, but that hardly kept the crowd from trying.

The climax of the evening, however, began after a block of three songs from Rusted Root were played in succession. The band realized that the crowd needed to hear something familiar for rejuvenation--and Lord Almighty, did they get it. Donovan started the drum intro to "Martyr," the most deliriously happy song on When I Woke, and was soon followed by Glabicki's playing of the opening guitar riffs. The crowd, quite simply, went wild. The energy practically shot through the roof--suddenly jocks in baseball caps, hemp-wearing, adolescents and men with very long bears were jumping up and down in gleeful unison. Glabicki and the rest of the band slowed down the joy by receding into the darker chords from "Laugh as the Sun," and built up suspense until everything exploded back into the blinding sunnyness of "Martyr" with an almost orgasmic cry of, "Hey!" Although the rest of the evening paled in comparison, the crowd stayed in a blissful state of afterglow for another.

a blissful state of afterglow for another goodhour-and-a-half.

The sweet, happy-go-lucky classic "Send Me OnMy Way" came later in the show, also after aseries of new songs, and got almost as hearty areception as "Martyr." In fact, everyone waschiming in so loudly and in-tune that Glabickisimply stopped singing, kept playing his guitar,and held the mic out to the audience. Overjoyed,the entire crowd at the Paradise sang the wholefirst verse and chorus, and continued backing theband up even after Glabicki and company joined inagain.

"Back to the Earth" came next, and with it,another great chance for the crowd to sing. Onceagain, Rusted Root just kept playing as everyonein the audience chanted the opening "hey"s overand over again, making the intro at least twice aslong as it should have been and infinitely morewonderful than I've ever heard it.

After a good five full minutes of clapping andstomping and screaming from the audience, RustedRoot came back for the encore. Donovan and thepercussionists got the beats from When IWoke's "Drum Trip" going just in time forGlabicki to come onstage, carrying a laughingBerlin piggy-back style and wearing her mylar starcrown. The rhythms naturally morphed into thesong "Ecstasy," which definitely described thereception the crowd gave the song, and the entireevening overall.

The members of Rusted Root certainly seemed toenjoy playing for everyone at the Paradise thatnight, but their enjoyment was nothing compared tothe almost life-affirming happiness that they hadgiven to the members of the audience. Liz Berlinmay have received a shiny crown for the day theband spent in Boston, but the gifts her band gaveto that rag-tag crowd of music lovers wereabsolutely and wonderfully immeasurable.Photo Courtesy of Mercury Records