The Decemberists happily return to Indianapolis

Credit the Decemberists for knowing exactly where they were Tuesday night and what their performance meant to the band's Indiana fans.

Singer-songwriter Colin Meloy playfully pretended to be hoarse when he arrived onstage at the Murat Theatre in Old National Centre, calling back to the strained vocal cords that caused the Decemberists to cancel an August 2011 show at the Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park. Amplifying the bummer was the Oregon-based band's hiatus that began that fall.

Meloy and Co. returned to work in 2014 and issued their "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World" album earlier this year. Finally making it back to Indianapolis on Tuesday, the Decemberists were contrite while also looking for a good time.

The show began with Meloy's solo rendition of "The Apology Song," which dates to the band's 2001 debut EP, "5 Songs." While the tune's lyrics aren't based on a canceled show, it's a funny/sad tale of someone who failed as the caretaker of a friend's bicycle. "I was usually pretty good about locking her up," Meloy sang.

By design or otherwise, highlights arrived with two selections from "The King Is Dead" -- the album the Decemberists would have promoted at the Lawn four years ago. Before playing "Calamity Song," Meloy revealed its origins as a parental plea: "Hank, eat your oatmeal."

Both "Calamity Song" and "Down by the Water" pulsated with R.E.M.'s distinctive jangle, specifically "Talk About the Passion" on the former and "The One I Love" on the latter. Which is logical, because R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck played on the studio recordings of these songs.

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"June Hymn," also from "The King Is Dead," tweaked the folk-rock template of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer." Lyrically, "June Hymn" finds Meloy stepping into a Wes Anderson world where things are artful, refined and nostalgic: "Pegging clothing on the line, training jasmine how to vine up the arbor to your door."

Musically, "Billy Liar" replicated buoyant '60s pop to pass the Anderson test. Recorded for 2003's "Her Majesty the Decemberists," "Billy Liar" celebrates self-love to a degree that Meloy introduced it as one of the three dirtiest songs he's written. By song's end, he divided the room into three singing sections (left and right of the floor as well as the balcony) to conduct an impressive "Billy Liar" choir.

Dressed in a three-piece suit and known for his exemplary singing (to borrow his compliment for the audience's work on "Billy Liar"), Meloy is an interesting study in commotion and control. He became appropriately fired up when rave-up "O Valencia!" kicked in, but he deadpanned, "I would like that back" after enthusiastically tossing a guitar pick into the crowd.

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The performance was silliest at its end, when "The Mariner's Revenge Song" featured the band's backing vocalists carrying an arts-and-crafts whale across the stage. Guitarist Chris Funk, who grew up in Valparaiso, coached the crowd in screaming "like you're being swallowed by a whale."

Funk, who helped organize the anti-Religious Freedom Restoration Act compilation "50 Bands and a Cat for Indiana Equality," did his best work Tuesday when providing pedal-steel accents to "The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)."

The Decemberists promoted new EP "Florasongs" with "Why Would I Now?" -- a leftover from the "Terrible World" sessions that's far from inferior. Meloy's knack for melody and integrity shines in the song's pledge of unwavering support.

Call Star reporter David Lindquist at (317) 444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.