Playing for a multitude of ultra-hip college-age young adults at the celebrated Orpheum Theater in Boston Thursday night, Grizzly Bear delivered a fantastic performance. The Brooklyn-based quartet demonstrated an acute awareness of dynamics, confirming the perfectionist impression one gets from hearing their finely tuned work in the studio.From where I was sitting in the upper reaches of the balcony, the performers looked tiny and featureless. Dwarfed as they were by the imposing venue, which sports stylish brass railings, marble staircases and gold-encrusted designs on the ceiling and walls, the opening band, Beach House, could claim only a tenuous grip on my attention. Despite the soulful lead vocals of Victoria Legrand and the charming use of graveyard organ, the songs all shared the same structure and languid tempo, making the performance somewhat underwhelming. By the time the main act took the stage, the audience was hungry for something more engaging.

Grizzly Bear opened their set with "Southern Point," the first track off their most recent album, Veckatimest. Like many of Grizzly Bear's songs, it is characterized by striking contrasts of loud and soft textures as well as layered vocals, thus making a faithful reproduction in concert seem unrealistic. But surprisingly, the musicians lost none of the energy found in the studio version. During the next song, "Cheerleader," they outdid themselves. Ed Droste's voice resounded expansively at the end of each set of lyrics, as if he were inside an enormous cathedral, while the rest of the band served as a soft backdrop. Daniel Rossen's grittier vocal harmonies on the chorus were impeccable and well balanced.

The band displayed a similar mastery of musical dynamics with its performance of the crowd-pleaser, "Knife," off of the 2006 album Yellow House. Led by Droste, the quartet kept its sound appropriately subdued throughout the first two verses, only to erupt into a cathartic crescendo on the third repetition of the lyric, "Can't you feel the knife?" during the bridge.

On "Fine For Now," from Veckatimest, the buildup was even more pronounced, as a subtle time signature and gradually evolving structure belied an effervescent extended climax that saw both Rossen and Droste rapidly picking guitar notes in harmony. If there is any instance in which the astounding coherence of the performance would likely have fallen through, it is here at the most demanding instrumental moment for each musician in the group. But the unity and spotlessness of the band's playing did not cease even for a second.

Other highlights from the concert included "Foreground," the wonderfully somber closing song from the new record. Droste's clean tenor reached beautifully-almost operatically-into the upper balcony as a sparse piano texture heightened a sense of loneliness befitting the song. Afterward, the band switched to a more energetic mode with "While You Wait for the Others," also from Veckatimest. Here, Rossen's distinctively watery guitar played sharp, percussive notes at high volume, thus building tension as each verse wound its way to a rousing chorus in which all four band members harmonized. The set closed with an uncharacteristically danceable rendition of the second half of "On A Neck, On A Spit," which Rossen led on guitar and vocals. As he played it, the tune was a straightforward country-folk song-to such an extent that the audience clapped the time on every second beat-thus highlighting Grizzly Bear's ability not only to recreate the songs that exist on its albums but also to push those songs in new and unexpected directions when playing them live.

As I exited the theater, awestruck and elated at having witnessed such a monumental display of talent, I suddenly remembered that Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead once called Grizzly Bear his favorite band. Such a compliment is particularly meaningful given the perfectionism and uniquely developed sensitivity to musical dynamics that these musicians share.