Nathaniel Rateliff performs at Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023. Karen Goldman/STAFF.

SAN FRANCISCO — “It’s taken us four years to bring you this show.” singer-songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff said Wednesday night at Orpheum Theater.

Dressed in a dark suit and collared shirt, Rateliff was flanked on stage by most of his backing band The Night Sweats (minus the horn section), plus a string quartet, as he ran through some of the lessor known songs from his more than 20-year career.

“This is like the Eras tour,” he said, with a smile.

Rateliff’s current tour was slated to play The Palace of Fine Arts when COVID-19 hit in 2020. He was touring in support of solo album And It’s Still Alright, and focusing on the music he made before joining up with The Night Sweats a decade ago.

Nathaniel Rateliff performs at Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023.

The audience was seated for most of the night and despite the ten-member band on stage, volume levels were low enough to enjoy the pristine sound. Rateliff’s raw, emotional delivery provided more than enough drama.

Some of the songs, like “Tonight #2” and “All or Nothing” from It’s Still Alright, used the string quartet, electric and acoustic guitars, two drummers and keyboards to achieve Phil-Spector-like walls of sound. But other moments felt incredibly intimate with Nathaniel Rateliff performing solo, picking out the delicate melodies on an acoustic guitar during “Kissing All Our Friends” and harmonizing with keyboardist Mark Shusterman on a drop-dead gorgeous version of “Are You Tired?” from his 2010, debut In Memory of Loss.

Other songs like “Shroud,” from Rateliff’s debut, and “Redemption,” which appeared on the soundtrack for Justin Timberlake’s Apple TV show “Palmer,” mixed the two sonic extremes with gentle guitar and vocals suddenly blooming into lush swells of strings and backing vocals. During “Expecting to Lose,” the string quartet played shakers and other percussion along with two drummers to deliver the song’s huge groove.

Nathaniel Rateliff performs at Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023.

During “Expecting to Lose,” the one Nights Sweats song of the evening, a few people danced together in the aisles. Played slightly faster than on the record, the evening’s rendition sparkled with the additional instrumentation. One of the sweetest additions to Rateliff’s sound was guitarist Luke Mossman’s haunting pedal steel, which added a satin-like texture to “Early to Spring” and “What a Drag.”

Opener Kevin Morby joined Rateliff onstage for a spirited version of Leonard Cohen’s “There is a War.”

“Why don’t you come on back to the war, don’t be a tourist/ Why don’t you come on back to the war, before it hurts us/ Why don’t you come on back to the war, let’s all get nervous,” the pair sang as war imagery played on the stage’s backdrop.

At Rateliff’s request, the audience stood for the three-song encore that ended with the anthemic “Mavis,” from And It’s Still Alright, during which attendees raised their hands in the air during the song’s powerful “hey ya” section—as if in church—and couples swayed in each other’s arms as Rateliff sang the tender last verse: “I recall a time, you were mine/ And all the time you bared your teeth/ Was always just a smile for me.”

Kevin Morby performs at Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023.

As Rateliff said goodnight, a message appeared behind the stage, “In Loving Memory of Richard Swift.” The well-regarded musician was Rateliff’s friend and producer, who died in 2018.

Earlier in the evening, Rateliff introduced Kevin Morby, whom he called “a friend and one of my favorite songwriters.”

Morby, dressed in a bejeweled suit, was joined by two other musicians who moved between instruments with him playing guitar on the twangy “Campfire” and the elegant “Sundowner” and then switching to the piano for “Destroyer” and “All of My Life.” The opening set’s highlight was a powerful version of “This is a Photograph,” which accelerated with a punk urgency as Morby repeated, “This is what I’ll miss about being alive!”

Follow photographer Karen Goldman at Twitter.com/Xposure120 and Instagram.com/karenshootsmusic.