The beauty of The Decemberists is that their music is completely impossible to classify.

An open secret in the hipster-dipster indie/folk rock world for years – Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert have frequently given them a platform – the quintet has barreled into a new stratosphere with their opus, ‘The Hazards of Love.”

A concept album centering on a character named Margaret with a storyline that also features a nasty forest queen and an assortment of love themes, it’s filled with ambitious musical detours that soar beyond the band’s usual breezy folksiness.

At a very sold out National on Friday, The Decemberists performed “Hazards” in its entirety, never pausing between songs for a break or to break character.
The opus was delivered flawlessly – with the exception of singer Colin Meloy’s microphone fritzing out for a few verses during the opening “The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone).“

Performing in front of a crinkly white backdrop to reflect a rainbow of colored lights used for dramatic effect, the band, joined by Shara Worden (as the jealous forest queen) and Becky Stark (looking a bit like Glinda the Good Witch as Margaret), sounded crisp.

Yet this sprawling work, which segued dreamily from “A Bower Scene” to the sleepy country of “Isn’t a Lovely Night,” a duet between Meloy and Stark featuring accordion and pedal steel guitar, never wanders aimlessly.

It’s not quite prog rock (thank God), and the layered harmonies of some songs owe as much to The Beatles’ “White Album” as the crunching guitar and organ swirls on others pay homage to Boston.

But it’s all pretty awesomely accessible, even though the band can sometimes get bogged down in its own self-importance (“You may render me a wreck when I come back” is one line in “Annan Water.” Um, seriously?).

And while the purposeful flitting of Stark’s Margaret and ferocious Grace Slick impersonation from Worden were theatrical to the point of teetering on camp, this crowd of 20-to-40-somethings was so enamored by the performance, most of its members managed to shut up and even keep their texting, Tweeting and status updating to a minimum for the 60-minute set.

The first notes of “The Rake Song,” the closest thing The Decemberists have to a single on “Hazards,” prompted pockets of the audience of 1,500 to toss handfuls of glo-sticks in the air. Every member of the band, except Meloy and bassist Nate Query, picked up drumsticks or mallets for the percussive feast, while fans sang along heartily with the sophisticated pub chant-a-long.

While most of the band is multi-instrumentalists, the quiet hero is Jenny Conlee. Whether playing organ, piano, accordion, keyboard or drums, her melodies and minor key shifts always kept the music interesting and ably distracted from Meloy’s oft-affected vocals (he sounds a bit like a robust Neil Tennant) and the fact that for as musically gifted as Meloy is, his voice doesn’t carry much range.

After wrapping the “Hazards” performance and taking a bow, the band sprinted backstage for a break, then returned for another hour-long set of older material.

Halfway through the first song, “Oceanside,” a pretty, yet basic acoustic strummer from their self-released 2001 EP, it became hugely obvious just how much this band has evolved.

a must see tour.

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