Kevin Bronson on November 8th, 2008

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L.A. quintet the Broken West were their feel-good selves in an opening slot for the Heartless Bastards on Friday night at Spaceland — well, maybe except for the band’s new drummer, Sean McDonald. He is playing the band’s four West Coast dates this month without the use of his right arm, which he fractured in a bicycle accident. Talk about a trouper. After his maiden voyage as a left-hander, McDonald said he’s just concentrating on basics: “Tonight I was just trying to work the kinks out.”

After opener Oklahoma’s Other Lives wowed a healthy early crowd with their string-laden folk, the Broken West added its dose of guitar-driven optimism, focusing largely on material off its 2008 release “Now or Heaven.” While that album lacks much in the way of home-run hooks, its hit-and-run rhythmic insistence worked well Friday during the quintet’s no-nonsense set. Austin-via-Cincinnati trio Heartless Bastards, the headliners, played their soulful blues-rock to a room almost full of devotees, but if you weren’t an absolute worshiper of singer Erika Wennestrom’s waves-parting croon (it’s worth respect but not necessarily obsession), the threesome’s mid-tempo numbers turned into a slog.