Lucero plays at the Bluebird

From simple stage lighting to their jeans and T-shirt outfits, alt-country group Lucero kept it all about the music at the Bluebird Nightclub on Sunday night.

The show started at 9 p.m. and marked the band’s third performance in Bloomington. Folk rock band Houndmouth opened for the group.

The band promised the crowd songs about “women and work,” which happens to be the name of the group’s latest album.

While its set included songs from its latest album, the band deviated from newer songs early in the show in favor of older ones.

Songs like “Kiss the Bottle” and “I’ll Just Fall” had members of the audience singing along, sometimes louder than lead singer Ben Nichols. Nichols even fell out during “Fall” to hear the crowd singing along and praised them, saying “that’s exactly right!”

The band let its country roots show in songs like “Little Silver Heart,” which invoked a sound similar to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song “Sweet Home Alabama.”

As per many of the audience members’ requests, the band played many songs worthy of slow dancing. Songs like “Hey Darlin’, Do You Gamble?” and “Wasted” featured many couples clutching each other around the waist and swaying in time to the music.

Because the band spent most of the night taking requests from the audience and some of the most in-demand songs were older, the band got off to a slow start with them.

“Sometimes songs slip through the cracks when you don’t play them for a couple of months,” Nichols said in an apology to the crowd. “You’re like, ‘I don’t know what note that starts on.’”

The band managed to keep things light, though, even when struggling to find the right notes. Band members drank throughout the show, much to the crowd’s amusement, and their beaming smiles and playful banter with the audience showed what a great time the guys were having.

“Other Side of Lonesome” was recorded for its new album but didn’t make the cut, and Nichols played it with an acoustic guitar, which he said he “never played with the band before.” Keyboardist Rick Steff traded the keys for an accordion for the song, and the crowd loved the band’s self-proclaimed “experiment.”

Even fresher was the song “Texas & Tennessee,” which Nichols said was written last Tuesday and performed only twice before. But it was ‘Breathless Love,” which was only written Thursday, that really got the crowd going. It was the first live performance the song had ever received and Nichols shared in the crowd’s excitement.

“It’s nerve-wracking because it’s terrifying to perform new songs in front of people,” Nichols said. “But you were all so sweet.”