Hammering off the rust

Tribute band clones Pink Floyd at the Nail in Stowe

Dark Side of the Mountain, a Pink Floyd tribute band, played the Rusty Nail in Stowe on Friday, March 27. And I mean played.

Expertly reproduced Pink Floyd seems to rock un-aged right out of a time capsule. Dark Side, a Vermont-based tribute band, proved Pink Floyd still stimulates the same tender space in human brains that it tickled back in 1973.

The show at the Nail was supposed to begin at 9 p.m. The place wasn’t hopping with guests until 9:30. The band didn’t take the stage until 10, by which time the tables were occupied, the bars were surrounded and the floor was full.

The crowd was equal parts late 20s, 30s and grey-haired. Those silver foxes swayed with the best of the younger crowd. Maybe Pink Floyd music gives off antioxidants. You’d think so, the way the crowd reacted. It seemed as if Pink Floyd themselves might have taken the stage. If you were visually impaired, it would be easy to mistake Dark Side of the Mountain for the real thing.

The show was also a throwback for the Rusty Nail, which recently reopened under new ownership after a hiatus of more than a year. The full house on Friday night represents a return to the storied venue’s glory days, when it played host to memorable concerts on a regular basis. If this show was any indication, it will play host to many more.

Dark Side of the Mountain was founded by drummer Matt Burr, who also plays drums for Grace Potter & the Nocturnals and is married to Potter. Burr on the drums is like a 250-pound man thumping down rickety steps. He hits those puppies hard and rides the rhythm like Paul Atreides on a sandworm. (For those not familiar with this “Dune” reference, it’s a 1984 film for which Pink Floyd was almost hired to do the soundtrack.)

Burr was all smiles, and why wouldn’t he be? The floor was immediately full of dancers. The audience sang along. The place vibrated like the world’s largest cell phone. The Rusty Nail is as spacious as Pink Floyd’s sound, but the place was full and contagiously electric.

The guitar, via Bob Wagner and Matt Hagen, had all the warbling, echoing aloneness of David Gilmour’s sound. The guitar lulled and rolled like waves from another era. Surprisingly, it was not a tsunami of nostalgia, but of timelessness, crashing over the jubilant audience.

The band was best when they played faster. “Lucifer Sam” slunk and rolled. “Young Lust” cast a spell of general, throbbing salaciousness over the listeners.

Of course, it was the songs from “Dark Side of the Moon,” one of the best-selling albums of all time, that knocked the rust off the nail. “Time” was especially well received, maybe because it’s what separates Pink Floyd from now, or because half the audience heard it way back then.

This was the complete experience, including zonky sound effects and brain-crippling visuals. The light show included stars, colors, Andy Warhol raindrops, the Japanese flag zooming in and out, an old-fashioned 3D rendering.

The band also brought their own wind chimes and saxophone, and their own singer to replicate the wailing vocals that propel most of “The Great Gig in the Sky” (off “Dark Side of the Moon”).

This was particularly impressive. The original studio vocalization was performed by a British woman with a spectacular voice. The Dark Side of the Mountain version was performed by a scrawny dude in a hoodie and what looked like matching pajama bottoms (could have been the light show) screeching and twisting across the stage like Joe Cocker. The amazing thing? It was damn near identical to the original.

That was the shock of this show: It was almost — as U2 would say — even better than the real thing. It was a tribute fit for the gods. To Burr and the rest of his band: Shine on, you crazy diamonds.