Neither Mickey nor Mighty or even Eek-a, yet more melodic than Itchy or those singing rodents enraptured by that blonde-having-less-fun Cinderella, Modest Mouse was fine for the faithful who filled about two-thirds of the Santa Barbara Bowl on Friday night.

Frontman Isaac Brock growled out the hits from his aggressive open stance as he flailed away on his guitar.

The rockin' rodents are out and about, evidently doing well with their could've-been-a-hit-on-the-Titanic sixth album, "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank," if all the sing-alongs to the new stuff from the mostly standing crowd Friday night were any sort of hint. Also, Brock and his pals are on an upswing; when they visited Santa Barbara in 2005, they were at the much smaller Arlington Theatre.

Even if they're good with directions, a watch for Christmas might be in order as, once again, musicians and clocks remained complete strangers. Opener Matt Costa was the paragon of punctuality; he did not overstay his welcome and the roadies did their thing, such as it was, since all the gear was set up already.

While those with radios bonded with the Dodgers, the rest were faced with a free (and fairly unusual for here) BMW (Basic Monotonous Wait) that dragged on for nearly half an hour.

Throwback rock

When the musical mice finally ambled out onto the stage, they came across as an early-'80s nervous New Wave pop band, with Brock's gruff vocals backed by stellar musicianship, certainly upgraded with the addition of guitar player Johnny Marr, one-time employee of the Smiths. The two drummers, both in striped shirts, were as solid as they were noticeable.

With that said, the vocals were totally unintelligible. Then again, no one goes to a rock show to figure out the lyrics.

And this crowd definitely knew its stuff, often beginning to cheer after the first note or two, even on some of the new songs, such as "Dashboard."

Brock described the new one as a "nautical balalaika carnival romp." His lyrics are often obtuse, but ever clever.

Brock seems to share his dim view of answers in the sky, especially when one hears lyrics such as, "It takes a long time but God dies too, but not before he'll stick it to you."

Mice merch was indeed modest: 25 bucks for a T-shirt, a deal at this venue.

Matt Costa

Punctual music fans were treated to a wonderful performance from the opener, folk-rocker Costa — reason enough to head north on a Friday night in the middle of a pennant race.

Costa's hook-filled latest album from 2006, "Songs We Sing," turned out to be songs he sang, which is good because most of us can't sing, so we just listened to the songs he sang, which before our ears became songs we could no longer live without.

Costa has that whole Donovan vocal thing going, plus he's signed to Jack Johnson's label.

Ably assisted by a four-man band, Costa continued his world-weary series of missteps with Miss Take — "You gave me your word, then you flew like a bird" — but his songs were so invariably catchy that people were singing along.

"Cold December" and "Yellow Taxi" were just a couple of his songs that will live in your head for days.

Hopefully, there will always be a place in popular music for guys like Costa. He reduces everything to the basics: simple songs, great hooks, a solid backup band — and he can even whistle while he works.

It was a disparate double bill but serviceable enough and conveniently over in time to catch the last half of Lagwagon at the Ventura Theatre.

— E-mail music writer Bill Locey at blocey@pacbell.net.