From the Grateful Dead to Parliament to Phish, bands that have cultivated grassroots followings have typically done so by building their reps on spirited live shows. Un-coincidentally enough, over time such groups also tend to develop an image that complements their music and becomes an extension of their persona. The Dead (and their Phish-y spawnings) got great mileage from their music's hippie trappings, while Parliament's "extra-terrestrial" theatrics helped make its concerts the stuff of legend.

When the Mighty Mighty Bosstones hit town, audiences likewise know it's time to raise the plaid flag, shine the wing tips and strap on the suspenders for a night of dancing and drinking to crazed, brassy ska and rock. But at the second show of a two-night New York stand, the Boston band proved that, for them, image is nothing and music is everything.

Clad in impeccably tailored plaid suits, the eight-piece outfit took the Webster Hall stage playing "1-2-8" from the just-released album "Let's Face It" as frontman Dicky Barrett used his gravel-throated growl to get maximum audience involvement out of the song's Family Stone-style counting chorus. By the time the band nailed the blaring staccato bridge of "Kinder Words," the concert was already in overdrive as the throngs of Bosstones faithful began the show's continuous stream of stage-diving and onstage dancing.

As the boys belted out a wave of carefully integrated bedlam during "Noise Brigade," Barrett froze on stage like a man possessed by the music, gritting his teeth and staring cock-eyed out into the crowd as he pounded his chest with the mike. Non-instrument wielding Bosstone Ben Carr, who serves as a focal point for the band's dancing rhythms, surfed similar musical waves on "Where'd You Go?" before orchestrating a communal pogo effort that had the audience moving and grooving and the balcony literally bending and bouncing.

"Why do we do this?" Barrett quizzed the sweat-drenched crowd mid-way through the evening. "Because we love it. And why do we love it? Because you're here." The Bosstones rewarded such devotion with energized versions of the more-traditional ska-leaning "Someday I Suppose" and "Royal Oil" before fully kicking out the jams with "Holy Smoke," a number that ended with Carr crossing himself like a pre-confessional Catholic with cause for concern before hurling himself into the crowd.

Even though this year's model of the Bosstones comes across as only slightly more mature than their thinking-man Lollapalooza temperament, the group is still a rock & roll party band, and Barrett apologized for its recent "touchy-feely" vibe and "maximum invasion of the television and radio airwaves." When guitarist Nate Albert struck the inciting chords of "The Impression That I Get" backed by a clever lick from the horn section, it was obvious how much the Bosstones have evolved from their humble origins into an incredibly tight and focused group worthy of picking up where Fishbone left off after "Truth and Soul."

Though their shtick is fa