BOSTON -- About halfway through Sebadoh's riff-charged performance at the

Roxy here Tuesday night, something unusual happened.

Unusual for an indie rock performance, that is.

During the bridge of the band's latest single,

bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Flame.ram">"The Flame" (RealAudio excerpt), a

topless woman rushed onstage and lurched toward singer/guitarist Lou Barlow. As the

loud Boston crowd gawked in astonishment, the busty woman was quickly ushered

offstage.

Barlow, obviously stunned, quickly shrugged off the incident and continued playing. No

devil signs flashed to the crowd, no grinding against the topless fan -- it was almost as if

nothing had happened.

For the thousand or so fans gathered in the posh ballroom, it was the night's sole "metal"

moment. The rest of the show, like most Sebadoh performances, was a pure experiment

in indie grunge-pop rock and in Barlow and singer/bassist Jay Lowenstein's unleashed

noise.

"It's kind of hard to concentrate without a topless girl up here," Lowenstein later

deadpanned to an audience who applauded its appreciation.

Tuesday night's show was the first for Barlow since he relocated to Los Angeles from

Massachusetts last year -- a move heavily covered by the Boston press, who have

supported Sebadoh for nearly a decade. As a founding member of the Northampton,

Mass., natives Dinosaur Jr., Barlow cut his eyeteeth alongside such local legends as

noise-poppers the Pixies.

It was in Los Angeles, though, that Barlow, Lowenstein and new drummer Russ Pollard

fashioned their latest album, The Sebadoh. Perhaps stealing a bit from the sunny

California scenery, it's "happier" than most Sebadoh discs, incorporating more pop

elements than such previous albums as Bubble & Scrape (1993),

Bakesale (1994) and Harmacy (1996).

Sebadoh's live performance, however, remained true to the band's history of lo-fi punk

rock. The band ripped through nearly 90 minutes of songs plucked from its seven

albums, including the new disc. But older nuggets -- tracks such as

href="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Ocean.ram">"Ocean"

(RealAudio excerpt), from Harmacy -- received the most enthusiastic response.

The highlights of the show included songs sung by Lowenstein, especially such recent

tracks as the raucous "Bird in the Hand" and the psychedelic, anthemic

href="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Weird.ram">"Weird"

(RealAudio excerpt).

Barlow, who early on told the crowd his voice was "real f---ed up," saved himself for the

band's poppier numbers, including "Rebound," the band's 1994 radio hit from

Bakesale.

On some songs -- including "Vampire," from Sebadoh's critically acclaimed Smash

Your Head on the Punk Rock (1992) -- Barlow and Lowenstein shared vocal duties.

Throughout the show, however, Sebadoh kept one thing steady: their trademark wall of

bright, white noise.

"Two Years Two Days," from Bubble & Scrape, started out slowly, even sounding

pretty. But by the time the chorus exploded into the spacious ballroom, fans were

bobbing their heads and erupting into small, impromptu mosh pits. During the funky

"Mindreader," Barlow and Lowenstein traded stringed barbs that created a screaming

barrage of feedback. "Drama Mine" gave the crowd much of the same, with Lowenstein's

Frank Black-like squeal pitted against Barlow's shredding guitar licks.

As awesome as the garage-raw sonics were, Sebadoh's finest moment came during

"Willing to Wait," their 1996 acoustic hit. Barlow, caressing his microphone and shutting

his eyes in a display of pained emotion, offered a rare moment of poignancy.

"I'm willing to wait my turn to be with you," Barlow sang passionately, holding on to the

mic stand for all it was worth. "Oh, when I saw you again, a beautiful friend/ She opened

up her heart and let me in."

"Lou Barlow is, like, an ultimate oxymoron," fan Chris Chen, 26, said before the show.

"He writes these songs about love and beauty, and then he puts these gigantic, painful

guitar riffs into them. When you listen to Sebadoh or Folk Implosion [Barlow's

side-project band, famous for the hit 'Natural One,' from the soundtrack to 'Kids'], you

feel the music, you don't just hear it."

The pleasure seemed plentiful both on and offstage Tuesday at the Roxy, as Sebadoh

kept the noise flowing for a crowd that happily sang along to nearly every song.