Before Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo had spoken a word, I already had a sense of the performance to come—a strong, almost violent bass was blaring from the speakers. It was the kind of sound that reverberates through your body, the kind you can feel. So when Toledo et al. launched into their first song, “Bodys,” to kick off their Sept. 27 performance at Delmar Hall, I could feel it.

Before the tours, record label releases and Billboard-charting albums, Car Seat Headrest wasn’t even a band: The project’s first few albums were crafted entirely by frontman Toledo and released on Bandcamp between 2010 and 2012, finding popularity within the indie rock community. Since becoming a full-fledged band with studio equipment and, well, more than one member, Car Seat Headrest has released re-recordings of early songs from Toledo’s Bandcamp era with an updated, more “hi-fi” sound. The band’s most recent release, “Twin Fantasy (Face to Face),” is a complete reworking of its 2011 predecessor. (It’s also my pick for album of the year.)

Carrie Phillips | Student Life

Car Seat Headrest performs at an energized Delmar Hall on Thursday night. The band, led by their frontman and original member Will Toledo, entertained the crowd with a charismatic personality and popular songs such as “Bodys” and “Fill in the Blank.”

Toledo performed “Bodys” with an energy and raw personality that you wouldn’t expect from a thin, mop-headed guy dressed in a plain black tee and flowy black pants. The crowd was captivated, and Toledo could sense it. He didn’t even have to sing the chorus; he just held out his mic to the crowd and let us do it for him.

But it wasn’t until the second song, “Fill in the Blank,” that the concert took shape. Throughout the song from 2016’s “Teens of Denial,” the venue was lit only by a set of strobe lights (which were in frequent use throughout the night). That’s when everyone really started to let loose. I realized the concert had become an outlet for the crowd’s pent-up energy, especially for the visibly plastered middle-aged man next to me, who was just having the time of his life despite his lack of self-awareness.

The concert wasn’t just engaging—it was also really, really good. The live renditions had a sense of vitality and urgency to them I’d never noticed during the many, many times I’d heard their studio counterparts. And despite my focus on frontman Toledo, the rest of the performers did their part and then some. As mentioned, the stage lights were an integral part of the show, and they helped create the atmosphere and mood of each song.

As the performance progressed, it became clear that the backing vocals and instrumentation served to add to—but not replace—Toledo’s roots as a one-man band. The other members of Car Seat Headrest gave Toledo’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics more power and nuance while making it very clear that these songs came from a singular vision and experience.

Take, for example, the lyrics to the band’s second-to-last song of the night, “Something Soon,” recorded in 2011 and re-released four years later: “I was referring to the present in past tense / It was the only way that I could survive it / I want to close my head in the car door / I want to sing this song like I’m dying.” Despite the guitar-strumming and steady background drumming, Toledo’s voice was all I could hear, its significance amplified by the on-stage accompaniments.

After a frenetic rendition of the song, the band transitioned into a much quieter, piano-driven song to close out the night. At the time, I had no idea what it was—only after finding up the setlist online did I discover that it was a cover of Dexys Midnight Runners’ 1980 song “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green,” which was a bizarre but interesting closer.

As the song appeared to be coming to an end, Toledo did something strange: He started jumping around, mumbling the lines at an incomprehensible speed. His band followed suit—the slow ballad transitioned back into the frenetic, energetic tempo of the rest of the 50-minute set. In what I assume was a spontaneous act of passion, he grabbed the mic stand, flung it around to the cheers of the crowd and tossed it aside before promptly exiting stage right, leaving his band to wrap up the song alone.

There was no encore.