The Black Angels' Friday gig in San Antonio showed the band's mind-altering power

The Black Angels' performance Friday at San Antonio's Stable Hall demonstrated why the Austin-based group remains one of the pivotal acts in the modern psychedelic revival.

The quintet once served as backing band for Texas psych legend Roky Erickson. It also founded and curated not one,  but two, sonically adventurous festivals: Austin Psych Fest and Levitation. And, during an almost 20-year run, it's also dropped a series of solid albums showcasing a unique and moody take on lysergic rock.

Turns out The Black Angels, who haven't played the Alamo City in six years, can still melt minds as a live act.

The group took the stage bathed in a kaleidoscopic light show that set the tone for the mind-bending trip ahead. The opening numbers paired a garage rock-inspired rhythmic chug with washes of guitar noise reminiscent of '90s shoegaze acts like Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Squalls of feedback punctuated the space between frontman Alex Maas' reverb-drenched vocal lines.

With the exception of a mid-show curtain drop to let the musicians reconfigure instruments and sit down for a series of mellower numbers, the show blended together seamlessly. It felt less like a conventional song-banter-song rock set than a float down a sonic river, complete with ebbs, flows, side currents and occasional churning rapids.

Speaking of those ebbs and flows, it can be easy for bands that rely on guitar effects and spacey sounds to bog down and sound samey during a live performance. That wasn't the case with The Black Angels.

Guitarists Christian Bland and Jake Garcia gave each other enough room to avoid turning the proceedings into auditory mush. The set also was varied enough that it showed off the band's expansive bag of tricks, from bluesy garage rockers to Velvet Underground-like drones to eerie psych-pop.

Through the night, though, it was clear that drummer Stephanie Bailey is The Black Angels' secret weapon. She played a major part in the set's dynamics and hammered down trance-inducing beats that kept the swirls of guitar and keyboard noise from drifting into the ether.

Opener Daiistar — an Austin band whose debut album was produced by The Black Angels' Maas — delivered a decent set of psych-pop informed by England's danceable Manchester scene. While the songs were catchy enough, there was a sameness to the musical formula. Only toward the end of the set did the group stretch out and explore.

For those keeping score at home, bassist Misti Hamrick-French did double duty on Friday, formidably holding down the bottom end for both bands.