The stage is the star at Lumineers' first Moody Center concert

How many concerts have you been to where the star of the show was the set design?

Not to take anything away from Saturday night’s performance at the Moody Center by Colorado folk-rock band the Lumineers, who thrilled a nearly sold-out crowd with a nearly two-hour performance drawing from the four albums they’ve released since 2012. But what made the show stand out was the shape of the stage, and how the band members used it.

Jutting out from the usual stage at the Moody Center’s west end were two long runways that joined together at about the midpoint of the arena floor. The runways encircled a standing-room-only pit where a few hundred concertgoers got an up-close view of the action. Back on the main stage, a tastefully designed array of lights and video screens, dominated by a circular video display in the center, further enhanced the look and feel of the show.

“Runways” is the operative word: Band and crew members frequently dashed down both sides of the extensions between songs and sometimes during them, occasionally making a full-circuit loop. The show began with frontman Wesley Schultz and percussionist Jeremiah Fraites, who co-founded the band in New Jersey in 2005 before moving to Denver, rising from platforms near the far end of each runway.

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Keyboardist Stelth Ulvang, violinist Lauren Jacobson, bassist Bryron Isaccs and multi-instrumentalist Brandon Miller — held court back on the main stage as the band launched into “Brightside,” the title track of the band’s latest album. But they didn’t stay there for long. By the end of the second song, the title track to 2016’s “Cleopatra,” Jacobson and Isaacs were at the end of the runway with Schultz and Frates.

By then, the crowd was already joyfully singing along. The band raised the ante with its third song by pulling out “Ho Hey,” the debut single that jump-started the Lumineers’ career a decade ago. Now all six members were out at the end of the runway, alternately playing to the crowd in the stands and to those fortunate few inside the runway-encircled pit.

“Ho Hey” came out of nowhere to reach No. 3 on the U.S. pop charts in 2012, helping the group’s self-titled debut go platinum. Chartwise, they’ve never really matched the massive success of that first hit. But they’ve continued to release albums and EPs that have sold well, and they’ve earned a reputation as an impressive live act. (It was not for nothing that U2 hand-picked them to open some shows on its 2017 stadium tour, including the Texas stops in Houston and Arlington.)

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The Lumineers’ lineup has evolved a bit over the years, the most notable change being the addition of Jacobson on violin and keyboards after the 2018 departure of cellist Neyla Pekarek. While guitarist and lead singer Schultz is the central figure — he writes the band’s lyrics, and collaborates with Fraites on the music — he’s not necessarily the focus onstage, in part because his bandmates have such lively performance styles.

Foremost among them is Ulvang, who made his dashes up and down the runway barefoot. Switching between an electronic keyboard and an upright piano, Ulvang was a livewire of energy all night, especially when he “surfed” the upright, precariously balancing his body on the piano’s top shelf as if he were suspended in midair.

Musically, the group’s appeal may depend upon how much listeners connect with the wave of anthemic folk-rock ushered in by acts such as Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers a few years before the Lumineers arrived on the scene. The songs are mostly simple structures both lyrically and musically; it’s up to the band’s performances to make them come alive onstage, and most of the time, it works.

Near the end of the main set — before a somewhat anticlimactic four-song encore that included a reprise of “Brightside” (not to be confused with the Killers’ massive 2004 hit “Mr. Brightside”) — the band brought out opening act James Bay for a cameo on “Gale Song.” In some respects, it revealed Schultz’s limitations: He’s a good singer, but Bay is spectactular by comparison, with far more emotional range in his voice.

More:Our 2016 interview with James Bay

Bay was a solid choice to open the show. The 31-year-old English singer-songwriter, who taped an episode of “Austin City Limits” in 2016 and also has appeared at ACL Fest, played a 40-minute set with a four-piece backing crew. Drawing material from each of his three albums, including the new “Leap” released last month, Bay struck an ideal balance between melodic songcraft and rock & roll energy centered on his engaging voice and memorable guitar riffs.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Colorado's Lumineers thrill their Austin fans at Moody Center concert