Brendan Benson and Cory Chisel @ Turner Hall Ballroom

After touring together for more than a month, the Brendan Benson/Cory Chisel road show has become a finely tuned machine, so it's a damn shame that more people know of Benson as "that guy from The Raconteurs" than "a power-pop genius who has a handful of independently brilliant records under his belt." The gap between his first solo release and his initial appearance alongside Jack White & Co. spanned almost exactly a decade, but to the delight of longtime fans this latter notoriety resulted in a comfortably crowded Turner Hall Ballroom for Benson's show on Wednesday night.

The audience seemed especially responsive toward honorary-Milwaukeean-by-way-of-Appleton Cory Chisel—even his obligatory Brett Favre/Vikings jokes garnered some chuckles, which is saying a lot in Our Year of Favre Fatigue. Ably supported by his five-piece Wandering Sons, Chisel responded to his affectionate reception with an outright inspiring set.Taut melodies and gorgeous backing vocals propelled an arrangement of stomp-along pop-rock interspersed with a few self-described "lullabies," each of which conjured more than a touch of The Swell Season's love-haunted ache.

Covers aside, Benson's set was split almost evenly among all four of his albums, with 2002's Lapalco and this summer's My Old, Familiar Friend taking the lead by one song apiece. His occasionally simplistic rhymes fit like perfect little puzzle pieces across his backing band's phenomenal harmonies and surgically precise rhythms. It's a joy to report that his days in an instantly famous pseudo-supergroup have turned Benson into a bona fide showman. "Good to Me" received the unbridled rock-star treatment, its recitation of life's simplest pleasures driven to new heights by full-on guitar and keyboard wizardry. The opening song and lead single from My Old, Familiar Friend, "A Whole Lot Better," seems destined for this year's confused and crushed-out mix tapes, with sentiments swerving wildly between unadorned warmth and outright derision.

After Chisel and the Sons' foot-stomping, altogether moving performance, most of the crowd seemed to simultaneously take an odd stage direction: Look bored out of your skulls until someone plays a Tom Petty song. Luckily, the headliner played a pair: Benson pounced on a rousing version of "Listen to Her Heart," and the two-song encore closed out the evening with an effervescent version of "American Girl," strummed alongside an openly excited Chisel. Suddenly, the otherwise-stolid crowd was alive with tone-deaf singing and pumped fists, ending the show as it should've lasted all night long: enthusiastically, loudly and to great applause.

Photos by Cj Foeckler