The Clientele have spent the last decade making hushed, mysterious albums that sound like they drifed out of a half-remembered dream and slipped through some interdimensional wormhole into our everyday reality. So it's almost anticlimactic to come to a Clientele show and see the stage occupied not by shadowy, spectral figures, but by four quite corporeal beings. The music made by those beings on the night in question, however, turned out to be just as deliciously dreamy and delicate as the band's gossamer discography.

Anyone who's ever listened to these British mood-makers for more than 30 seconds knows that they bear a distinct debt to '60s pop, and at age 35, singer/guitarist Alasdair MacLean -- with his casual moptop, broad-striped sweater, and baby face -- comes off every inch the ageless pop wunderkind a la Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, et al. Sharing the front of the stage with him, keyboardist/violinist Mel Draisey offered the perfect complement, looking like she just popped out of a Harry Potter book with her long blond tresses, white fairy-princess dress, and bare feet. As soon as the quartet kicks in, the room is awash in a sea of reverb and tremolo, giving MacLean's guitar and voice that once-more-around-the-moon feel, and subtly filling up the spaces in between the sounds, to the extent that it almost becomes a fifth member of the band. The set, a mix of new tunes from the forthcoming album Bonfires On The Heath and old favorites, is bookended by two covers -- Big Star's ethereal "Night Time" (after MacLean jokingly threatened to play something from the power-pop heroes' unimpressive '04 "comeback" album In Space) and "A Picture of Dorian Gray" by Television Personalities. The latter's winsome images of cucumber sandwiches and lemon tea resonate particularly well with the band's pastoral, British-countryside vibe.  In between, MacLean's otherworldly whisper and jangly, fingerpicked guitar patterns led the charge, with Draisey's simple-but-effective organ lines adding just the right touch of 1967 San Francisco to the mix. James Hornsey kept things moving with fluid, McCartneyesque (him again!) bass lines, while Mark Keen played with what must be the lightest touch of any "rock" drummer currently working, contributing further to that Surrealistic Pillow feeling and making sure things stayed appropriately airy. At one point MacLean half-joked "We're playing as quietly as we can."

The crowd, which spent most of the show in a motionless, transfixed state, was snapped free from the music's hypnotic powers when the band left the stage. The audience suddenly recovered its collective voice, loudly demanding an encore, which brought two more tunes. When the Clientele's clientele cried out for one more after the foursome departed again, they were eventually rewarded with a final song, but before that happened, the stage door briefly opened and closed as if by itself, with no one coming in or out. It was difficult not to wonder whether those evanescent Clientele spectres of our fancy decided to take that moment to waft out for their encore.