The Decemberists, along with special guests The Walkmen and Loch Lomond, seized the stage Sunday for what turned out to be a tame indie-rock show at Cornell University’s massive gymnasium, Barton Hall. All in all, the performance seemed to please the serene crowd.

Loch Lomond, a chamber ensemble from Portland, Ore., set the mood for the show as a mellow, cuddle-up-on-the-couch-with-a-loved-one kind of night. The ensemble rocked the crowd with its sweet lullaby-like songs during a 40-minute set.

The second opener, The Walkmen, an NYC-based indie-folk rock band, came out ready to sway the crowd. The opening song, a light and airy tune, “On the Water,” soothed the audience with a heavily piano-based melody. Songs such as “Canadian Girl” and “I Lost You” were joined by a three-piece trumpet section that helped pick up the pace and add a deeper dynamic to the five-piece band. The band aced its set and showed the crowd that even somber love songs and dreary blues recordings can be played until they learn the words to sing along.

After a long set break during which most of the crowd shuffled backward to sit and even lie on the gym floor, The Decemberists were ready to play. The show started with an outer space-like entrance that seemingly beamed the band down to Earth with bright blue lights from an unseen spaceship. With echoing calls it opened with “Shanty for the Arethusa,” a song with lyrics that described pirate life.  Front man Colin Meloy and his bandmates Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen, make up an indie-folk rock band from Portland whose lyric-driven songs tell of sea adventures and successful shoplifting attempts.

The crowd roared when Meloy greeted the people of Ithaca and noted that the band’s intentions that night were to make the show an interpretation on “sexy graveliness” and to keep drinking wine, which they continually drank onstage throughout the show. Meloy kept up constant interaction with the crowd, telling stories through his songs, joking about the missteps he took with his lyrics and asking the crowd to sing along to help him remember the words.

The band played a few new songs, including, “Valerie Plame,” which referenced the Bush administration being “kicked to the curb.” As the song progressed, some of the crowd moved back to dance while others sat and enjoyed the varying acoustic sounds bouncing off the gym’s massive walls.

Narrating the show, Meloy requested that the people in the crowd put their arms around one another and sing along. Noting the presence of a liberal campus and town, he said it was the best “arms around each other” he’d seen all tour. In furthering his affinity for the town, he repeatedly mentioned his love for Moosewood’s curried lentil soup. The silliness didn’t stop people in the crowd from swaying along for the rest of the song, their arms linked with friends and strangers alike.

The band teased The Doobie Brothers’ “Funky Dixie Land” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” as it progressed through the set. And of course, an interactive show like this one had to have a clap-along. A few minutes were spent sending claps back and forth, and the crowd’s interactive energy led nicely into “The Perfect Crime #2,” a song off of the band’s last album, “The Crane Wife.”

Before the set came to a close, Meloy referenced Barack Obama’s win and asked the crowd to participate in a chant of “Yes we can, yes we did” to celebrate the presidential election. With that, the band walked offstage and the crowd beckoned it back with lighters in the air.

Meloy and drummer John Moen came back up for a duet, “Raincoat Song,” about getting rained on. The jokesters had a comedic dialogue throughout the song before Moen took his place behind his drum set for one more. Loch Lomond joined The Decemberists onstage for its last song, “Sons and Daughters,” which contains lyrics that gaze optimistically into the future with hope for change. Meloy introduced the repeated refrain, “Here all the bombs fade away,” after the crowd pleaded for one more sing-along, and Meloy asked the crowd to keep on singing even after the show was over. As the crowd funneled out of the gym, you could hear audience members muttering, “Here all the bombs they fade away.”