Here’s a positive concert review from St. Louis.

St. Louis fans of Dashboard Confessional got to have their collective voice heard - we’re talking really heard - at the rock band’s sold-out concert Thursday night at the Pageant.

The Chris Carrabba-fronted outfit’s 90-minute show featured as much singing from the audience as from the heart-throbbing Carrabba, as most of the songs contained at least a portion in which fans completely took over. But that annoyance wasn’t impossible to overcome, because almost everything else about the concert felt so right.

Much of that revolved around Carrabba. The former singer from Further Seems Forever is a charismatic front man who seemed to have the crowd eating out of his hands.

Against a set decorated with bright Chinese lanterns and a vibrant brick building backdrop, Dashboard Confessional gave its version of the sometimes overly murky genre called emo, which sometimes references a softcore, more female-friendly version of punk. In this band’s hands, it’s not necessarily complicated or challenging, thanks to Carrabba’s open-hearted approach to songwriting. But that’s not at all a diss.

Carrabba switched configurations all night, sometimes performing with a full band including a violinist, sometimes going solo with his acoustic guitar or as a guitar duo.

He excelled, regardless of which way things were pulled together.

He surrendered the spotlight once, saying he wanted to give something back to the crowd. That was friend John Ralston, introduced as the best singer-songwriter, for the song “Gone, Gone, Gone,” one of the night’s best.

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