I’ve been listening to the Long Island rock outfit Brand New since it dropped 2001’s Your Favorite Weapon and became an emo-pop sensation with MTV2 favorite “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad.” My admiration for the four-piece band has only grown since, as I’ve watched its sound become slow and thoughtful with 2003’s Deja Entendu, then big and ominous on 2006’s The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. Unlike Taking Back Sunday, another Long Island emo-band that started around the same time and for years shared the same sliver of pop-punk limelight, Brand New has never made the same record twice. So while I might not love the overly-somber melodies that have emerged as the band’s specialty, I appreciate the fact that its tunes defy expectations.

That artistic confidence, however, has never been as apparent within its performances. Singer and guitarist Jesse Lacey rarely speaks during Brand New’s sets, except maybe to ask what you’re doing listening to him (as he did at last summer’s Lollapalooza, when he irritably told hecklers only there to get good spots for Rage Against the Machine’s set that they should go listen to Explosions in the Sky, which was playing at the same time). Also, in a recent interview, Lacey discussed the band’s new album (due out September 22), saying pretty clearly that it would probably be the last one before Brand New calls it quits. So when I saw Lacey’s familiar hiking boot hesitate at the top of the spiral stairs leading onto Subterranean’s stage, I nervously hoped there weren’t any Rage fans in the crowd.

Decked out in variations of  the white v-neck (by Hanes, not American Apparel, as Lacey later pointed out), Brand New launched into “The Shower Scene,” the opening song off Your Favorite Weapon. The packed venue (the show was sold out with passionate fans offering $300 for tickets to those in line an hour earlier) erupted as the entire crowd pushed toward the stage, astonished the band had decided to open with an oldie. Before we could catch our breath, the band went straight into “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows,” the catchy, equally powerful single off of Deja Entendu.

The crowd was a mix of college and high-school kids (you’re never too young for flannel), but there were a few adults hanging out at the front of the pit. A middle-aged man to the right of the stage helped his 11-year-old daughter get a good spot while he explained to me that Brand New was one of the few bands he still made it a point to see (”And this might be the last time,” he said wistfully, before handing his BlackBerry off to someone taking pictures of the set list). After “The Quiet Things,” Lacey began “Okay, I Believe You (But My Tommy Gun Don’t),” a song that built in intensity with every palm-muted guitar strum and spoken-sung line (that the crowd couldn’t help but scream along to) leading to the poppy anthem of a chorus. During the middle of the song breakdown, Lacey literally held the guitar to his face and screamed into the pick-ups, using them as an impromptu microphone.

Though Lacey occasionally looked flustered, cradling his head in his hands in an exaggerated display of forlorn confusion over what song to play next, his mood seemed genuinely friendly. At one point he told a story about how once at a show the band’s bassist had slammed his bass on stage and shattered it…five minutes after their set was over. He also unveiled the name of the new album, And One Head Can Never Die, and played a handful of songs off it, which recalled The Devil and God, but a tad lighter and with more melodic screaming.

Dipping into newer material, the band played “Jesus, “Sowing Season” and “You Won’t Know” off of The Devil and God. This batch of songs sounded both tremendously epic yet weirdly hypnotic, providing a much-needed breather from the pit-pleasers “Seventy Times 7″ and “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad.” After playing for well over an hour, Brand New closed with “Soco Amaretto Lime,” the last track off Your Favorite Weapon and the one we were all waiting to hear. The irony of the song’s refrain, “I’m gonna stay 18 forever,” was not lost on the 30-year-old Lacey, who played this one alone, strumming quickly but softly. Lacey encouraged the crowd to sing along, chanting “You’re just jealous ’cause we’re young and in love,” the song’s closing line, with the crowd until he tacitly commandeered the last word for himself. Everyone but him knew to fall silent as he sang, “I’m just jealous ’cause you’re young, and you’re young and you’re young.” An ending any less sentimental would not have done the show justice.