There’s something innately satisfying about watching Turbine headline their own tour. In the past, they have occasionally opened for larger acts, like Perpetual Groove, and have been forced to cut back on the length of their sets, while attempting to fit an overwhelming stage presence into the unaccommodating position of “opening band.” Thankfully, after spending six months promoting their live album Sounds In The Hall, and playing more festivals in the past year than most bands play in five, Turbine is rapidly gaining the popularity and the fan base it deserves.

Without any introduction, electric guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Hilliard, acoustic guitarist/harmonicist Ryan Rightmire, bassist/vocalist Justin Kimmel, and drummer Octavio Salman slowly made their ways on stage, casually lifted their instruments, and began their set very anticlimactically with “Don’t Take Money From Strangers” and “Behind These Walls.”

As expected, the soothing “beach” vibe didn’t last very long. The band jumped right into the lyrically dense, quick tempo-ed “Blackout Song,” during which Kimmel and Hilliard harmonized their vocals perfectly throughout catchy pop-jam―transforming the audience from curious observers to enthusiastic participants.

While channeling Hilliard’s Southern roots, the music took on a traditional blues/southern rock attitude midway through the set with long, serrated harmonica riffs and obtrusive guitar wailing (reminiscent of a fiddle) flickering in and out over a steady―almost dirty rhythm. Giving the impression of a freight train sliding down the east coast, “Roll On” evoked the clichéd but nonetheless powerful scene of bales of hay and an old guitar, stealing a ride on the back of rickety caboose on its way through Dixieland. The song fed right into “Columbus Day,” an equally rugged, but slightly more circular and repetitive jam with an intricately explosive three-minute long conclusion (very characteristic of Turbine, which more often than not opts for overly developed, thickly layered, grandiose finales). Kimmel and Hilliard flashed an elusive smile after the dual rendition, knowing that the psychedelic, sonic bliss they just conjured couldn’t go unacknowledged, even by their own standards. The band chose this opportunity to announce that it has already spent “a couple of weeks” in the studio recording a new album, scheduled to be released in early 2011.

On stage, the dichotomy of the band’s demeanor is striking. Kimmel and Rightmire are relaxed and focused, as if they’ve melded to their instruments and are operating solely as vehicles through which the music will emerge. Hilliard and Salman take the opposite approach, violently thrashing on their guitar and drums respectively, as if they have to force their instruments into submission to produce the desired sounds. Rightmire is also an interesting spectacle in his own right with acoustic in hand, blowing into a contraption that resembles orthodontic headgear, while alternating between the roles of folk artist and club deejay (the harmonica is rigged to produce a multitude of bizarre effects). The show peaked when Rightmire inflated a blue balloon about twice the size of a volleyball and used it in place of his mouth to “blow” into the harmonica, while bearing an unforgettable facial expression of triumphant deviance, as though nothing made him happier than rebelling against traditional performance standards. Obviously a stunt like that requires an exorbitant amount of talent, technical mastery, and creativity, which Rightmire humbly exuded in his own nonchalant manner.

With minimal dialogue, no breaks in the set, and hardly any interaction between band members themselves, it was evident that Turbine was there only there to play music; Kimmel even had to be reminded by an offstage team member to announce that band merchandise was being sold in the back of the venue, which he reluctantly mentioned two songs later. Audience members who called out “Jeremy” managed to hold the frontman’s attention just long enough to whisper a funny or suggestive comment towards him, sending waves of laughter through those who overheard but failing to trigger any visible reaction in Hilliard himself.

Throughout the night, the band never lost energy or momentum, tackling the longest and most complex songs as through it weren’t 1:45am and they hadn’t been playing since midnight. There was a moment when Turbine risked losing the audience to exhaustion, but the band literally made everyone jump with the abrupt start of “Stand Down,” a song that sounds eerily similar to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” with four jolts of electrified harmonica followed by a long, unnerving vibrato.

It was 2am when the audience started chanting “play all night!” a prospect that both band and crowd seemed ready to embrace. Unfortunately, The Mercury Lounge wasn’t having any of it. At 2:15am, as Turbine prepped for their last song, the venue lights and house music came on in response to band’s small plea of “One more?” With a defeated “That’s it, we’re out of time,” everyone was forced to say goodnight, knowing that they had just witnessed something truly exceptional if a two-hour and fifteen-minute set wasn’t nearly long enough.