The Wood Brothers are all for their audiences being loud and boisterous when the band gets its rock-and-roll heart pumpin’ and guitarist Oliver Wood and bassist Chris Wood face off in front of Jano Rix’s kit on such numbers as “Honey Jar.” 

And when they unplug their instruments and gather around a single, old-fashioned mic to play quietly? That’s the time for fans to “lovingly shush” their chatty neighbors, Oliver Wood said. 

“We sometimes find if everyone shuts their pie hole, something special happens,” he said of the band’s intimate presentations. 

With Oliver Wood on resonator, Chris Wood on double bass and harmonica and Jano Rix on shuitar and melodica, the trio proceeded to confirm Oliver’s observation with a quiet couplet that included “Loaded” and “The Muse.” This was chamber music at its core as Chris Wood bowed his instrument, Oliver Wood’s strings rung from the 1930s and Rix rapped out a beat on a raggedly old acoustic-guitar body. 

It was the second front-of-stage twofer—the Woods had previously offered “Heartbreak Lullaby” and “I Got Loaded” while plugged in at individual microphones—and came near the end of the trio’s 21-song, two-hour set Nov. 7 inside the gutted former church now known as Columbus, Ohio’s, intimate Bluestone, where a disco ball hangs between stained glass windows on either side of the balcony. 

The second night of the Puff of Smoke tour showcased nine of the titular LP’s 11 tracks as the Woods expand their sound with the neo-electronic template of “The Trick” and “Above all Others,” which recalls Queen at a carnival owing to Rix’s crankbox keys. As Oliver Wood alternated between electric and acoustic guitars and Chris Wood did the same with a Höfner violin and his bass fiddle, Rix was the wiry colorist, playing drums and cymbals with foot pedals and his left hand, keyboards with his right and adding crucial, unifying harmonies to the Wood brothers’ blood-kin blend.

Other Puff tracks, including “Pray God Listens” and “Witness” – the latter of which found Chris Wood beating on the body of his bass as Rix does on the shuitar – hew closer to the Woodsian style of open-air music with unique-to-them percussion. 

These characteristics emerged in full glory on classic offerings like the soulful “Tried and Tempted,” the pensive celebration of “Bittersweet” and balladic “Luckiest Man,” which turned into a lusty singalong, and “Shoofly Pie,” featuring a fiery slide solo from Oliver. 

“We might have to come to Columbus more often,” Oliver Wood said at evening’s end. And that might’ve gotten the loudest response of all.