Eleven thousand, six hundred people howled as though they were dingoes on the edge of the Australian desert: It was chilling, and the Dave Matthews Band hadn't played a note yet. It had simply walked onstage Wednesday at the sold-out Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial. Matthews, in his casual T-shirt, ambled from one end of the stage to the other, acknowledging the adoration with merely a smile and a wave. It's crazy, crazy, that this is the biggest American rock machine of the day.

Those 11,600 sang along with many of the songs, yet most folks who don't follow the band closely would be hard-pressed to come up with the name of one Matthews hit. This is not a band that lives and dies by the radio. It dances on the whorl of plasma molecules of light projected onto the stage and across the audience, as Matthews shuffles jerkily like a marionette, his soul pouring from that acoustic guitar and trilling, snarling, scat-singing, often cartoon-character voice of his.

It is acoustic-based music, played with a groove and a funk — and even a swagger — that suggests a band that's completely at ease playing live. It takes its time, almost interminably, between songs. The wait for the encores was five, eight minutes. As long as you'll see at a show. Yet the crowd didn't lose steam for "The Christmas Song" and what's become the Matthews concert standard, "Ants Marching," supplemented with a Boyd Tinsley-led fiddle hoedown.

It's a visually stimulating band, particularly when Tinsley suddenly scampered to the front of the stage like a reggae scarecrow. The Dave Matthews Band is, without a doubt, a live experience: Half of the more than dozen albums it's officially released have been live recordings.

The audience howled again, this time in recognition, at the opening notes of "Recently." That wasn't a radio hit, but they all knew the words. "Dream Girl" was an elegant departure from the groove, a pop ballad from the latest album, Stand Up, that should have been a hit.

"Crash" was a hit, presented here quietly, growing in crescendo. "Stand Up" was a rumbling, frat-boy chant with sax, "Stay" a bounding blend of groove and soul. It was bewildering and exhilarating to keep up with these guys, as the band submerged into Middle Eastern psychedelia. Growing menace is also a DMB signature, with Matthews yowling into the rafters.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's murder, opener Soulive delivered "Come Together," what they said was a Pantera cover (musta been the Sly Stone version), and the old soul classic "Tighten Up." I haven't heard funk this cool since polyester shirts.

Soulive played like it was the hometown favorite. Which it is, in a way, with the Evans brothers — keyboardist Neal and drummer Alan — having grown up in Buffalo. Alan proudly noted their parents were in the audience. And they're probably rightly proud of their sons as well: a great band, and Alan has the finest Afro in pop music today.