Deerhunter January 29, Bunkhouse Saloon

Overwhelmingly, encores feel tacked-on and lame, truly surprising concert-goers only when they don’t actually happen.

Deerhunter blew all that up Sunday night. After finishing its primary set, the Atlanta indie band returned to the Bunkhouse Saloon stage—okay, technically it never left, but that was strictly a matter of logistics, given the club’s packed and pathless interior—and gave the sold-out crowd a real treat. Something completely unexpected. Like, I’ve been to more than 1,000 shows in my life, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

Deerhunter’s encore doubled the length of the show.

The main set, which ran a solid hour, had been impressive, if shy of the mind-twisting spectacle of the group’s 2013 Vegas debut at Hard Rock Live on the Strip. This one started slower, mostly because frontman Bradford Cox left his guitar on the rack for the better part of 40 minutes before really strapping it on and adding his layer of anything-can-happen fire to the mix.

Why the wait? I’m blaming Kings of Leon, for whom Deerhunter spent much of January opening. Judging from Deerhunter’s support-slot setlists for those shows—among them an LA Forum appearance on Saturday—Cox devised a song grouping less likely to offend arenas full of closed-eared KOL fans. And in doing so, he took his guitar largely out of play.

In Vegas, that somewhat softer approach—which also found Cox adopting a croonier vocal style reminiscent of The Walkmen’s Hamilton Laithauser (track down the excellent recording of Sunday’s show floating around to judge for yourself)—carried over, making the first two-thirds of what could be termed Sunday’s “first set” a bit tepid by Deerhunter standards. Not that it didn’t include quality tunes, “Revival,” “Back to the Middle” and “Helicopter” among them, though it’s worth nothing Cox played guitar on exactly none of those.

The final third of that set was a different story. I first marked a highlight-indicating asterisk in my notes during the end-jam to “Dream Captain” (song eight), then jotted another two numbers later during slow jam “Take Care,” which got beautifully loud during its final stretch. After lead guitarist Lockett Pundt took the mic for “Desire Lines,” a party-starting “Snakeskin” ended the 12-song main course with real fervor, sending last year’s midday-sun Coachella fest version to the dustbin of time.

After that, Deerhunter put down its instruments and milled around, while Cox introduced his five bandmates and delivered this assault on the presidential administration and some of its supporters: “My name is B. Cox. I’m here for each and every one of you. I represent the death of romance. I represent disease. I represent decay and antiquity. I represent the patina, the blaze of all cultures. I represent the antithesis of the culture that is becoming predominant in this country. I’m sickened to my stomach by anybody who represents a reality in which anybody is superior to anyone else. I represent every outcast and person who Donald Trump will eventually call a degenerate artist. But don’t worry, don’t worry. There is not long to go. This song is about the skin of a dead youth. Let’s hope there aren’t too many more … this week. I wanna encourage each of you, if you ever meet a Nazi, to punch him in the f*cking face.”

Deerhunter then began its non-encore encore with “Flourescent Grey,” the momentum-building tune with the “Patiently, patiently” lyrics that kicks off the 2007 EP of the same name. An instrumental segue followed, and then … instant magic, in the form of the band’s quintessential number, “Nothing Ever Happened,” from 2008’s Microcastle. As the song’s hypnotic Kraut-beat unfurled, Cox spoke/song lyrics from Patti Smith’s epic “Land” off 1975’s Horses (why not?), rocked out on guitar and synthesizer and eventually sat down at the drum kit (of course) when sticks man Moses Archuleta headed offstage with Pundt and bassist Josh McKay.

As Deerhunter’s leader kept time, keyboardist Javier Morales and percussionist Rhasaan Manning—both new to the group as of 2016—continued jamming … and jamming … and jamming. McKay re-emerged to add relentless low end to the mix, and the pulse went on and on. The crowd thinned, predictably—so much the better for those still embracing the vibe and happy for more space. Whenever the quality of improv waned, it soon improved, so that most of the hour-ish “song” felt vibrant—and feels interesting played back.

When Cox finally left the stage, he did so to heartfelt, exhausted, full-body applause—nothing like the sort normally offered up for a traditional concert “encore.”