The concert at Cholmondeley's last Friday night went exactly how you would expect a five-hour, low-budget college concert event to turn out: four difficult-to-listen-to bands set the mood for a semi-good headliner that didn't take the stage until around midnight. It was strange that the number of people who came for the Boston-area headlining band, Westbound Train, was drastically less than the number of people who arrived during the first three opening acts. Maybe this was because the first acts were simply more popular. I mean, who hasn't heard of In the Face or Eroica, or that good old-fashioned folk trio The Northwoods that everyone loves to listen to when they're in a dentist chair or in an elevator or in a car listening to a low-frequency country station in the backwoods of Beaver City, Nebraska? C'mon, these bands are old favorites, which must have been why there was a higher volume of concert goers during their sets than during the headliner's set. Or the reason could have been that Westbound Train played so late-absurdly late, I daresay, so late that I left at 12:30, which was in the middle of their set and right around the time when the guitarist's new, straight-out-of-the-packaging Fender amplifier stopped working, forcing the band to stop playing for God knows how long; could have been five minutes, could have been an hour. At that point, the hours were as useless as peanut shells, shucked off two at a time until you realized that you'd been standing in the same spot next to the monitor for nearly four hours. Whoops! Time to move before your ears start to bleed.

If you were one of the few die-hard Westbound Train fans who did decide to brave the opening acts and stay until the end then you were duly rewarded. Westbound Train was a reprieve, a professional ska act with well-spun song structures and an authentic, feel-good vibe. Singer, trombonist and chief songwriter Obi Fernandez demonstrated some remarkable vocal chops, which, to his adoring fans, are only a vehicle for delivering his lyrics. His songs, as he informed the crowd multiple times during the night, sprang from his restless, starry-eyed college musician days when living in his old Boston apartment at 1111 Boylston St. Watching the audience members mouth and sing along to Fernandez's every syllable made it very clear that his lyrics are the focal point of the band's appeal. After all, what college kid doesn't want to ditch rigid familial expectations and follow some righteous pipe dream?

What was especially rewarding for those fans who stayed was that Westbound Train took requests. Because of this, the band ended up playing songs from 2002's Searching for a Melody, including "My Heart Belongs to You" and "Salvation." It also played tracks from 2006's Transition, including "Please Forgive Me" and "I'm No Different." All of the songs that the septet played showcased each member's musical abilities, whether it was with solos or the way they seamlessly blended with one another, constructing a foundational cushion that contributed to the band's buoyant, rhythmic aesthetic.

Moving Mountains was the auxiliary opener and played the quickest set of the night, which was fortunate because the band became tiresome after its first song, and the majority of its musical capacity was expended. The New Yorkers were good at two things: building up to a climax and blasting your eardrums off with that climax. Their sound falls under some invisible frame of pseudo-epicness, which results in something that is very melodramatic and unconvincing. The band did sport a couple of interesting riffs, but they were quickly offset by the vocal work, which sounded like loud, low-pitched dial tones played too close to a microphone.

The Northwoods are an acoustic folk trio from Allston in which all members play guitar and sing in unison. Their predictable lull caused people at the WBRS- and STAND-sponsored concerts to grow impatient very quickly if they hadn't succumbed to a deep sleep already. The band is reminiscent of a genre of 1950s musical trios often found at restaurants that harmonize a mellow rendition of "Happy Birthday" for their customers.

Eroica is an instrumental indie band from Northeastern University that has considerable talent but is unpleasant to listen to for any stretch of time. Because they are all instrumentals, each song is a disjointed, multifaceted story with shifts in feel and tempo creating abrupt changes in the storyline. The band's sound is moody, with ethereal effects and strange violin work. You wouldn't want to step inside the head of the architect of these songs.