By Hana Nobel

It wasn’t Shabbat, but a sea of yarmulkes filled the Orpheum Theatre Wednesday night for a Matisyahu concert.

The Hasidic Jewish rapper and reggae musician who reigns from Brooklyn performed for a crowd of nearly 2,000 people.

The artist’s opening band, the Flobots, set the bar high in terms of stage presence, leaving Matisyahu with a lot to live up to – but the artist did not compare to his opening act.

Matisyahu entered the stage in his trademark suit, yarmulke, long curled peyes, tzitzit (fringes) and Adidas sneakers. While the initial promise of a great performance had the audience on its feet, the longer the set went, the more people sat down. After a few songs the crowd began looking more exhausted than excited.

The songs Matisyahu performed went on for too long, and there were large gaps between singing and lengthy instrumentals.

The concert quickly began to feel more like a jam session of a band featuring Matisyahu rather than Matisyahu accompanied by a backup band. One audience member could be overheard commenting that the singer’s rendition of the song “Happy Birthday” was the best performance of the night and the one in which he sang the most.

There was a portion of the concert when the singer climbed atop the speakers, which would not have been an issue if he performed from up there, but Matisyahu simply sat there and enjoyed listening to his band play while he chimed in with an occasional lyric.

Though he played some old favorites, including “Time of Your Song,” “Chop ’em Down,” “King Without a Crown,” “Late Night in Zion” and “Aish Tamid,” some of them were initially hard to recognize.

A guest performance by Mackenzie Roberts, the violinist of the Flobots, had the audience temporarily on its feet again, but the excitement was short lived.

The preceding performance of the Denver-based Flobots had an energetic vibe. The band describes their music as hip-hop, progressive and classical on its MySpace page, but it could also be described in one other word: funky.

Featuring two emcees, a guitar, a bass, drums and a violin, the band jumped, danced and jammed through their set, accomplishing the goal of pumping up the audience.

The Flobot’s frontman emcees, Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit, threw in political messages both in their songs and between sets. The band dedicated one song to the soldiers in Iraq and stressed the importance of voting.

The Flobots performed songs off this year’s album “Fight with Tools” and induced the most cheers with their hit single “Handlebars.” The song “Stand Up” got the crowd to do just that and had the audience wishing there was more room to move around than in the Orpheum’s cramped space.

In contrast, Matisyahu’s lackluster performance was missing a few things: energy, singing and songs. He could have slipped more old favorites into his set, if the songs that were performed did not go on as long.

By the end of the evening, it was clear that the Flobots stole the show and left the audience wishing they were the headlining band.