Oh, for the Sake of Momentum.

It's a rare instance when an audience knows an artist's songs better than the artist herself, but that's the charm of the Aimee Mann experience, or at least it was on February 2nd when Mann graced her hometown crowd for her lone East Coast appearance before the April release of her new album, Smilers.

This concert — fan favorites and new classics — was the polar opposite of Mann's late December Christmas Show, which relied heavily upon cameos from Nellie McKay, VH1's Paul F. Tompkins ("Best Week Ever"), Ben Lee, and even Ben Stiller.

But this night wasn't about the Reason for the Season, or about Mann's talented friends, it was about an artist rewarding her hometown crowd at The Birchmere a cozy yet spacious venue Mann lovingly refers to as her "home away from home."

Compared to the Christmas Show, Mann was more in her element performing music she's actually written — but not by much. Proclaiming herself an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" type person, Mann's struggled to recall the words of a few older songs, including "Susan" and "The Fourth of July," but the crowd had her back and bassist Paul Bryan held things together. This likely wouldn't have been a problem if Mann had pre-scripted which oldies she'd be playing. But the audience seemed more than happy to trade participation in the concert for a few lyrical missteps.

The sometimes show-stealer of the night was sick man Jamie Edwards, battling through the flu and lack of familiarity with older material to provide some well-placed embellishments that added a new wrinkle to "How Am I Different," after which Mann and the audience acknowledged his efforts with praise. But what Edwards lacked in terms of knowing his role on certain songs, he made up for with skill and showmanship, and the occasional calculated embellishment.

Paul Bryan, the producer of Smilers, played the base and stabilized the performance by remembering the lyrics Mann didn't and playing his part cleanly throughout. The guy most trusted to do his job right typically doesn't get much credit for a job well done, but any true Mann fan in the audience could discern Bryan's importance to the show on a night when one bandmate didn't know all of his music and the other didn't know all of her words.

And You Make All the Rest just an Afterthought

Understanding the difficulties audiences — even ones as loyal as the supportive Birchmere clan — can have getting into new music, Mann decided, wisely, to split the baby: one new song for one fan favorite, selected at random from a bucket full of napkins on which wrote out their picks.

(I arrived 45 minutes early and not only had the selection process had ended by then, but the place was packed even more than the Christmas Show I was tardy for.)

The one-for-one ratio proved a good choice considering the marked difference in audience energy levels between more familiar songs and newer stuff.

That's not to suggest that the new stuff isn't any good — it is — just that it doesn't have the context that makes an Aimee Mann song special. Even Magnolia's instant classics, "Wise Up" and "Save Me" are the exceptions that prove the rule.