Telling Stories Around the Fire With Camper Van Beethoven

Yeah, the Camper Van Beethoven reunion show Wednesday at the Knitting Factory was a full-on nostalgia fest. But it didn’t just recall the days before “alternative” (to what?) rock became a marketing force.

The mostly original members underscored the virtuosity and playfulness of their pioneering ‘80s college rock by adeptly bringing the alternately humorous and moving songs back to magical, majestic life.

Leader David Lowery’s success came with his subsequent, more straightforward band Cracker, but CVB, formed in Santa Cruz in 1983, concocted a wry blend of rock, punk, ska, folk and world music that honored dinosaurs such as Led Zeppelin while skewering the more dogmatic trends of its own era. Case in point: the sardonic college-radio favorite “Take the Skinheads Bowling.”

On the first of its two scheduled nights at the Knitting Factory, Lowery, violinist Jonathan Segel, bassist Victor Krummenacher, guitarist Greg Lisher, drummer Chris Pedersen and keyboardist David Immergluck wrung every bit of sonic texture from the material, sprinkled liberally with spaced-out instrumentals and flatly punctuated by Lowery’s nasal deadpan. Some favorites got left out, but they did play the title tune of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk,” having recently released the two-CD version of that album they recorded in 1987.

Lowery sniped that for the audience, the gig meant a chance to hear “Skinheads” again, while to the group it was about revisiting its later albums, “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart” and “Key Lime Pie.” But in truth, Camper had the near-capacity crowd from the opening notes of the sweeping, “Pie”-era ballad “All Her Favorite Fruit.” And neither players nor listeners let go for two hours.