If Ithaca’s historic State Theatre, with all of its old-time accoutrements, isn’t extravagant enough on an ordinary night, the Squirrel Nut Zippers concert Saturday evening could have certainly convinced any concertgoer that the band had been transported to another time period.

Men dressed in pinstriped zoot suits and women wearing iconic ’20s flapper outfits mingled in the dimly lit entryway where ushers offered faux pearl necklaces to anyone who walked in underdressed.

The rock band’s performance held additional significance because it fell on the 80th birthday of the State Theatre.  Dan Smalls, the theater’s talent coordinator, addressed the crowd in an introduction, remarking, “What better act to transcend the 80 years of this historic theater than the Squirrel Nut Zippers?”

And transcend it did, playing its own bouncy mix of genres, ranging from big band to swing, jazz and even some funk, as the night went on.

The set began with the band’s vocalist and lead guitarist James “Jimbo” Mathus singing the quaint duet “(You are my) Radio” alongside the band’s multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Katharine Whalen. Meanwhile, the rest of the group tuned up until the drums shattered the tranquility by jumping into the frenetic “Low Down Man”.

The seven-piece band, made up of three guitarists, a trumpeter, a saxophonist, a keyboardist and a percussionist, managed to get audience members moving in their seats, snapping their fingers and even doing some stationary, solo swing dancing during the first couple of songs.

But as the show continued, more and more people got up and began dancing in the aisles, and by the time the band played one of its bigger singles “Put a Lid on It,” the entire space in front of the stage was filled with people moving about wildly.

There were occasional breaks from the band’s fast-paced songs, during which front man Mathus spoke to the audience in his cool, sophisticated drawl. Mathus decided to read a passage from the band’s catalog/memoir, “The Squirrel Nut Zippers: Unzipped,” as if he were a beat poet with a jazz band backing his words.

The band began its second act with Mathus casually apologizing for the band’s failure to be politically correct before jumping into a small portion of songs from its holiday LP “Christmas Caravan.”

The first number in this segment was a slow, Shaker-esque Christmas lullaby titled “Gift of the Magi,” featuring Mathus and Whalen singing together in tight harmonies and a mandolin as accompaniment. It was a pleasant little pause from the usual frenzied songs that dominated the set.

The lights were then shut off and a projection screen was lowered as the Zippers began the final song of the set, “The Ghost of Stephen Foster.” The music video for the song, which the band synced up flawlessly, was a Chuck Jones-esque cartoon showcasing the misfortune of a newlywed couple as they attempt to stay in the haunted, living, singing Hotel Paradise.

And though the crowd was predominantly middle-aged and older, they still cheered as enthusiastically and vigorously for an encore as any young crowd at a rock concert would have done.

The band came out and played a funk-filled rendition of “Do What?” and then a song that simply consisted of the entire band repeating the lyrics, “It’s all over!” to the dismay of the eager crowd, who didn’t want the band to put down its instruments.

Mathus grabbed the microphone and urged audience members to raise their voices to celebrate the occasion by singing “Happy Birthday” to the theater.

The houselights came on, but the Squirrel Nut Zippers kept on entertaining, as a band member took up a tuba, and the rest of the group marched through the aisles playing a percussive, nonsensical romp.

Though the band’s repertoire stretched over the past eight decades, encompassing the life of the State Theatre itself, concertgoers in attendance, both young and old, were not deterred from having an energetic, jive-filled evening.