Joe Lally and Glorytellers at the Middle East, 6/10

Boston's Glorytellers took the stage first, performing a low-key mix of jazz-inspired, near-acoustic indie rock. Though the group's volume didn't match that of Karate (a group that included Glorytellers' frontman Geoff Farina and drummer Gavin McCarthy), Glorytellers were on the same musical plain as Karate in spirit and performance. Songs such as "Tears Of" were executed with a serene sincerity easily found in Farina's delicate, near-spoken intonations, and guitarist Mike Castellana's jazzy-undertones. Toss in a ragtime-flavored cover, some lengthy jazzy improvisations, and a little guitar squealing so powerful it threw Castellana's body into McCarthy's drum kit, and it created endearing set that would've fit perfectly between tracks from Unsolved and Pockets.

While Glorytellers seemed to fit right in on the Middle East stage, Joe Lally seemed a bit haggard. Or, at least, his sleep schedule was a little off. Fortunately, Lally's odd stage banter—which included a failed search for SSD's Al Barile in the crowd—was the only thing that appeared to have been hindered by years of constant touring. Joined onstage by Ricardo Lagomasino and Elisa Abela, a couple of musicians probably half as old as him, Lally seemed capable of anything. The trio cut through tracks off There To Here and Nothing Is Underrated like they were sheets of paper, adding so much teeth to the songs Bostonist couldn't remember if it was the late 80s or 00s.

Twenty-two years since he first jammed in the Dischord house basement with Ian MacKaye, and Lally's still got it. The music and legend of Fugazi may hang on Lally like the most annoying eight year old on a sugar high, but Wednesday night Lally proved he had the capabilities and direction to continue to make music without reverting to nostalgia. While Fugazi's evolution from 13 Songs hit a fantastic peak on the band's last album, The Argument (though who knows if it is the last Fugazi record; the band is, after all, on indefinite hiatus), Lally has soldiered onwards, braving new musical territory that one can only imagine would be right at place in any post-Argument Fugazi album. Tossing in elements of jazz, archaic noise, and minimalism, Lally's music seemed to take different directions before ending up at its final destination and perfectly on time. Lagomasino and Abela were excellent counterparts to Lally, and proved fully capable of re-creating the mess of songs Lally recorded with his Dischord buddies.

One of the more memorable moments of the evening's performance stuck with this Bostonist. The sight of Lally, eyes clenched tight in concentration and steadily repeating a bass lick while shearing guitarwork and off-kilter-and-barely-there drumming swirled around him, was completely representative of the evening. "Old" punks can still make noise, and they can still challenge themselves while doing it.