Think of your typical folky, indie, female singer/songwriter. It probably sounds something like a mix of Sharon Van Etten, Regina Spektor, Feist, or something more extreme, like Joanna Newsom. Now, take away the raspiness, the bird-like voice, those little yelps and other vocal oddities, the quiet crooning, the rock edge. All that you’re left with is a raw, unadulterated, clear, powerful, and honest voice. In other words, you’re left with Laura Veirs.

What sets Veirs apart from other stellar female vocalists in the underground music scene is the transparency and intimacy of her voice, like someone singing you a song she just wrote in a living room. It’s a sound that’s led to collaborations with Jim James (from My Morning Jacket), Sufjan Stevens, and the Decemberists, and it’s what packed Joe’s Pub in Manhattan on Sunday night.

Cracking jokes between songs, Veirs struck a perfect balance between passionate music, dinner theater entertainment, and folksy storytelling. Her voice is unpolished but professional, and she’s not afraid to take risks; the angular melody on new song “Ten Bridges” had a rough transition over her vocal break, but it still felt organic and true. Her cover of Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” was a powerful take on the Harvest Moon track, stripping away its country feel with her highly personal gravitas.

Veirs was certainly the star of the show, but her bandmates and backing vocalists-Alex Guy on strings and piano, and Tim Young on electric guitar-were highlights in their own right. Guy lent deep, bassy viola tones to “Wide-Eyed, Legless”, while Young matched Veirs’ aggressive strumming with an unearthly slide guitar. “Riptide” featured a long viola solo, with a richness and pathos that dovetailed with the melancholy lyrics, and Guy upped the ante by looping a string of melodies on top of each other, creating a dynamic, polyphonic intensity. Young contributed a mean mute-picked guitar solo on the country ballad “Jailhouse Fire”, and soft, understated washes of Telecaster on “Spelunking”. Both instrumentalists crafted a long soundscape of flickering notes and shimmering textures on the outro to the icy “Ether Sings”.

Veirs stuck mainly to songs from her critically acclaimed 2010 release July Flame, with a sprinkling of songs from her earlier albums. She also brought in a pair of tunes from her latest release, Tumble Bee, an album of old-timey children’s music, no doubt spurred by her status as a new mother. “The Fox” was a clap-along, sing-along favorite, and her version of the old Southern field song, “Jump Down”, featured Guy and Young taking on some deft vocal acrobatics.

Unlike some of her previous performances, Veirs may have been at her most relaxed and unguarded Sunday night, with an ease that barely reflected the heaviness of her lyrics. The show was more of a fun time, rather than an intense evening of serious music (although the music was all seriously fantastic). She added to this playfulness with a “we-learned-this-in-the-van” 17th century drinking round by Henry Purcell, and a mashup of songs ranging from Outkast’s “Miss Jackson” to Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” that all feature the same “hit” chord progression (perhaps as a nod to the Grammys we all chose to miss). Veirs joked about these oddball juxtapositions, following the mashup by introducing her next song with the terse, “Back to my old melancholy stuff, here’s a song about the tides.”

Still, there’s a certain mystical, elemental quality to her lyrics and music from earlier albums, dealing with fire, ice, volcanoes, water, and the cosmos. These aren’t quite as prevalent on July Flame, and so the escapist quality that sometimes characterizes her songs was absent. While a seated crowd in an intimate venue is the perfect showcase for Veirs’ music, there’s something about having someone eating a bowl of soup between you and the artist that precludes a deep, audience-performer connection. Yet, as she sings on “Life Is Good Blues”, “Life is good when you dance all night…Life is good when the band is smokin’ hot.” Although there was no one dancing Sunday night, the band was definitely smokin’ hot.

Setlist:
When You Give Your Heart
Sun Is King
Carol Kaye
Life Is Good Blues
Spelunking
Wide-Eyed, Legless
Shape Shifter
The Fox
Jump Down
Lonely Angel Dust
“Song of Songs (S.O.S.)”
Riptide
Henry Purcell Round
Ten Bridges
Unknown Legend (Neil Young cover)
Jailhouse Fire
Ether Sings
Encore:
Make Something Good
I Can See Your Tracks