Pat Fleming finally made it into the crowd during the Poison Control Center’s second-to-last song.

During the band’s sing-along performance of “Magic Circle Symphony,” the guitarist/vocalist jumped out into the middle of the energetically dancing crowd, playing a lengthy solo while doing the splits.

This was normal concert behavior for Fleming. But it got wilder.

Apparently feeling there wasn’t enough audience involvement in the sing-along, Fleming handed his guitar off to audience member Jordan Mayland, who fronts local band Keepers of the Carpet. Mayland kept up Fleming’s part while Fleming ran around in the crowd, chanting the repeated line, “Love, love is the answer/Until you get cancer.”

After he had perked up a number of audience members, Fleming vaulted the M-Shop’s bar while continuing to sing – to the apparent ire of the staff members behind it. From here, he jumped to a pipe mounted along the ceiling and swung hand-over-hand over the audience. Mayland was now on stage, filling Fleming’s normal role.

His offstage jaunt finally ended when he lowered himself onto two of his supporters – in more ways than one —who held him up by his feet.

Rushing back to the stage, he ignored his hastily lent guitar in favor of hefting a seldom-used keyboard over in the air and playing it with his head.

The performance won over members of the hundred-strong audience who’d never seen the Ames-native band perform before.

“I could see the other band members looking at him like, ‘I hope he doesn’t break it,'” said Matt Plasek, sophomore in aerospace engineering, of Fleming’s keyboard stunt.

Andrew Huber, sophomore in philosophy, was also impressed by the performance, being particularly impressed by Fleming’s balance while he was atop the two fans. But he saw one area where he thought the band could improve.

“I think they need to get just a little bit bigger show so that have enough money to smash shit,” Huber said.

The show was held Saturday night as a CD release party for the band’s new album, “A Collage of Impressions,” which was offered to the attendees and will be available in retail stores nationwide Tuesday. The Poison Control Center took the term “release party” seriously – the venue was littered with balloons, and the band members passed out cookies to the audience before the show began.

Throughout the 17-song set, which mostly featured tracks from the new album played in the band’s characteristically heavy live style, Fleming repeatedly thanked the band’s supporters and contributors to the album. He also expressed hopes for the future of the band and Ames music.

“I think this is gonna be the best year for local music in Ames in a long time,” Fleming said. “This is what we need, is band self-promotion.”

After playing a song that was intended to appear on the new album as the lead track, but wasn’t recorded due to an upset recording engineer, Fleming primed the crowd for larger future shows.

“Maybe a year, year-and-a-half, two years from now, we’ll go to the Great Hall and try to fill that room with like 600 people – if [M-Shop student director] Kay [Mwanza] lets us.”

The rest of the hour-and-a-half was accompanied by the band’s typical stage stunts, with Fleming bouncing all over the stage and guitarist Devin Frank rolling onto his back and doing somersaults, while bassist Joe Terry and drummer Don Curtis stayed safely out of the way.

The band’s live style, which is much more heavy and raw than its sound on its recordings, got the crowd moving, building up a fair-sized semi-mosh pit that saw up to 20 people in it at one point.

One For the Team, from Minneapolis, opened the show with a half-hour set. Fronted by Ian Anderson, head of the PCC’s record label, Afternoon Records, they presented an indie rock sound as similar to Mates of State, with dual vocalists Anderson and Grace Fiddler.

The Poison Control Center’s next area show will be Oct. 5 at Being There Coffee in Altoona.