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"We're having a great end of the year," Bill Mallonee of the Vigilantes of Love proclaimed, a message in code perhaps to the many email list members who turned out in Chicago for a late-season appearance. Only a month earlier, upon the band's return from their fall UK tour, Mallonee had poured out his despondency to sympathetic readers online. In Scotland, at one of their last stops, over $3,000 worth of equipment was stolen, robbing them of not only the tour' profits but the last of their fading breakthrough hopes. But Vigilantes' veterans have been through this before and like the Shaker hymn, the band may have finally turned and turned enough to get it right.

This much-reinvented band is now molded in the form of its latest album, Summershine, Mallonee's home studio homage to the Brit pop sound. Although many, including Mallonee, thought it to be un-reproducible live, fortunately, the producer was wrong. It was simply a matter of finding a second guitarist in the right vocal range (Andrew Grow of Five O'clock People) and adding a xylophone to the drummer's kit. Steady touring since the album's debut perfected the blend and infused the band's sound with a general light bounce while still retaining the lessons of a high mileage decade. The caution and gloom are still there for those who search it out, but the modifications make the sound its most accessible ever.

After a dozen recordings, hopes were high that this CD would be the one to capture the general public's attention. Instead, 2001 saw the promising development and recording of Summershine collapse into a disappointingly flat initial release. But six months later, the record is still in print and thanks to the unending touring of these four guys in a van, nothing justifies missing an opportunity to see a concert. The barriers that might have made this a difficult band to introduce to friends are no more. Softer edges, sweeter chords, rolling rhythm replace the jagged three-piece that blasted its loyal fans at "projectile" volume. They still command attention. The reinvention suits the old stuff while making the new stuff shine. Even long time fans need to become reacquainted.

Joyous, confident, bouncing even when they rock hard, the two hour set felt like twenty minutes. Mainly featuring the two newest studio albums Summershine  and Audible Sigh, newcomers like "You Know That," "She is Fading," "Green Summer Lawn," "Galaxy," and "Making it Up as We Go Along," took their place among the too-long list of old-timer favorites. What's an intrigued listener to do? Buy all the out-of-print early records, available now as sanctioned bootlegs directly from the band. They can use the gas money.

Returning to the stage for an encore with "Resplendent," this song about the dustbowl '30's became a timely allegory of survival amidst national and familial destruction on this the three-month anniversary of the September eleven attack. "Onto Bethlehem," a personal Christmas journey each of us must take, led Mallonee to admit, "It's been a long year. We're looking to put a period on this run-on sentence."

But a new sentence is already started. Andrew Grow has returned to the West Coast to work on his own projects. Kenny Hutson, who added so much to the band's recent past, just completed his college degree and is rejoining the band for a few dates this winter. The Vigilantes have never followed a set rhyming scheme with their sentences; their story doesn't allow that level of predictability. But everyone who has been touched by this band is hanging on every word.