I’ve always thought a truly great live show can turn a mere building into a visual and aural experience, transforming that venue into a memory. This might be the experience I’ll feel several years down the road in relation to last Saturday’s Oxford American show at the Bama Theater.

Of course, a good picture doesn’t hurt. At the close of their show-stealing performance, Two Lettaz of Huntsville-based hip-hop craftsmen G-Side took a photo of the crowd, which he later posted on Twitter. This technique is a reminder of the personable nature of the group and their desire to go for passionate ears, but moreover, it’s a breaking of that barrier between fan and artist. The group even addresses the pros and cons of that proverbial fourth-wall breaking in a song called “Y U Mad,” and in the name of their most recent album, “The One…Cohesive.”

I would argue G-Side’s performance was the climax of a shockingly well-paced show, but I’ll admit that there is a personal attachment to what they are doing for hip-hop. To me, hip-hop has been a genre adorned with taking big concepts and finding a way to communicate those ideas in a broad but often muddied fashion. This is not bad, but it’s also not subtle. (For example, Nas’ records may as well be hour long lectures about what Nas thinks about the rap industry with an inexplicable Chris Brown hook thrown in somewhere.)

Now, G-Side is doing nothing new on the surface. Southern rap has a long tradition of covering poverty and hardship as fuel for rhymes and eventually profit. But it’s the way G-Side communicates their ideas that truly makes their work stand out. They take pride in staying at home and creating a hip-hop haven in Huntsville and drop references to the Tide often.

G-Side was the literary version of the climax, built by strong performances from the acts that preceded them.

The Bear is hard to pin down musically, only because they throw in banjos and soulful hooks in an alternative-country vibe. However, they are more interesting than that tag insists. And while it’s often a critic’s nightmare to not be able to compare a group’s sound to another right away, The Bear’s music is steeped in Alabama roots and sounds gorgeous beaming from a stage.

Cleve Eaton and the Alabama All-Stars excel at a genre I’m normally bored by in improvisational jazz. However, the night was a strong showcase for Eaton, an Alabama Music Hall of Famer with a decades-long history as a session player. It appears Eaton took some of the great veteran session players of the state and developed a fine chemistry, including the talents of multi-instrumentalist Jeff Lopez.

Finally, Jason Isbell was the closer of the evening. His performance was unsurprisingly great, and like a party you hate to die down, the end of his set felt too soon. I hope Tuscaloosa is already aware of Isbell’s talent and craft as a songwriter, especially on a song as perfect as “Alabama Pines.” However, I imagine most readers are already well aware of Isbell’s skill.

In fact, the crowd may have been too aware. At the very end of Isbell’s performance, I heard a small but audible “DBT” chant, which is at best, awkward to yell towards Isbell. I was also a bit perturbed at the woman yelling “Play some jazz!” mid-performance during Eaton’s set as if he doesn’t know the genre like the back of his hand.

But these are small gripes. This was one of the strongest nights for the Bama Theater that I’ve seen as a local resident, and it may have not compared to how fans felt about the Drive-By Truckers show just a few nights earlier.

Long story short, good job guys.