It had already been a special show by the time the Wood Brothers brought Jobi Riccio on stage to sing “Angel Band” with the temporary quartet gathered around a single mic.

Kicking off their tour April 3 in Columbus, Ohio’s, Southern Theatre, the Brothers Wood had adopted an honorary sister – “We completely got an amazing vibe,” Oliver Wood said – in the opener they met hours earlier. Riccio sung the lyrics off a sheet of paper on the floor in harmony with Oliver and Chris Wood and Jano Rix, and her hosts hugged her and rubbed her head as the audience went berserk following the haunting delivery.

It was that kind of night as the group and its fans exchanged energy, sung together and applauded one another from the opening “Two Places” to the finale, “Luckiest Man,” with everyone on their feet, nearly two hours later.

Having been scheduled to play Columbus before COVID-19 got in the way, the Woods’ trip to town was a long time comin’. And as they performed “River Takes the Town” as the second of 20 songs, it seemed the musicians had seen the Scioto River coming out of its banks after days of heavy rain in the capital city.

As guitarist and singer Oliver, his harmonica-blowing, bass-playing and co-lead-singing brother Chris (he sung “One Drop of Truth”) and multi-instrumentalist Rix – who plays keys with his right hand and drums with his left and his feet while joining the Woods’ blood-kin harmonies – explored their songbook, they continued paving their unique branch of American roots music where grooves trump solos and showmanship complements the music.

So it went that the lanky and elastic Chris Wood danced with his double bass, his red shoes sliding across the stage as if it were made of ice during “Alabaster” and later, as the band played “Wastin’ My Mind,” falling to his knees as he played an electric Höfner violin model. Rix, meanwhile, was like a musical machine, incorporating shakers, bashing cymbals with his hands and playing melodica and shuitar – a percussion instrumental fashioned from the body of an acoustic guitar – that gives the Woods their trademark, clip-clopping undertones on such numbers as “American Heartache,” during which Rix and Chris Wood played a high-energy, low-end showcase while Oliver Wood vamped on electric guitar, and “Sing about It.”

There were a couple of opening night stumbles, such as when Oliver forgot the words to “The Muse.” But his self-deprecating response was all charm. And when the audience picked up the song and got the singer back on track, the special relationship between players and listeners once again worked the kind of magic only live music can conjure.

Riccio, in possession of a powerful and expressive singing voice that spans the sonic range, quickly won the house over with a set culled from Whiplash and an in-progress LP to be released later this year. Playing solo-acoustic and -electric, she garnered a standing ovation and cheers that relented only when the house lights came up. It was hard to tell which made her happier – that, or the response she received on “Angel Band.”