First, let me come clean. When someone says the words "jam band," I inwardly roll my eyes and insert a finger down throat. Gag me. I have no desire to listen to another half-hour of the same riff over and over again, with a few minor alterations and a sonic tangent resulting from a misplaced chord. I am neither drunk nor stoned enough to revel in the monotony, using the chant-like hypnotics to anchor me as I fly off into self-induced mindscapes, only to come back to reality when the melody is once again inserted. I go to concerts to hear and see the music, not to envision my own private Idaho or transform my identity.

There, I've said it. Maybe I'm exposing one of my biases, but there's not a person in the world that doesn't have them.

Because of the above, I'd never bothered listening to Umphrey's McGee. So before the show last night at Water Street, I popped in the band's album "Mantis" and was quite pleasantly surprised. Yes, this was a jam band, but of the old-school sort. This was not repetitious rumblings of the droning kind, but fresh improvisation. Sheesh! Why didn't anyone tell me this was an improv band? Of course, this was a studio disc, and the show could be quite different. Still, I had a point of reference.

The ticket-buying crowd was racked up outside WSMH, still waiting to get in even as the band had already begun to play. Two things immediately impressed me. 1. I was relieved to be able to leave my earplugs in my pocket. And 2. the lighting. Not that it was a spectacular light show, but it was beautifully classy, a poetic melding of smoke and colors, the hues sliding down like rainbows on ribbons of smoke.

The crowd moved like a calm sea, gently riding the waves, with only the occasional odd one expressing a tonal epileptic fit. Which brings me to the fans: usually the crowds for jam bands are made up of people in their own worlds. They might all be in it together, but each is also off on their own inner tangents. These fans were alert, appreciating what they were getting and not needing to improve it with their own improvisation. This is a credit to the musicians who were a centered force, a hub around which the crowd revolved. The band was so involved in the creation of a scene, without being removed from its affect, it became an axis of alliance.

The band itself didn't interact much with the crowd, but it didn't need to; the music did it for them. Being the newbie to the Umphrey scene that I am, I didn't recognize most of the songs, but the band was tight and held my attention. The few covers that were thrown in -- The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. -- were expertly revived, building on the material without diminishing the source. I guess you could say I've been converted.