The Wallflowers perform during the PGA Tour Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort in Napa on Sept. 17, 2021. Nate McKinley/STAFF.

NAPA, Calif. — After a day in which they saw Bay Area native and Stanford grad Maverick McNealy continue to play well on his home turf and lead the Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort and Spa, fans made their way out front to watch The Wallflowers, Friday night’s headliners at the tournament’s accompanying concert series.

The Wallflowers perform during the PGA Tour Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort in Napa on Sept. 17, 2021.

“Thank you, we’re Bush!” joked frontman Jakob Dylan, referring to the band originally scheduled to perform that night, but dropped out just a week earlier. “Haven’t fooled you yet, huh?”

They opened with “Three Marlenas,” “Move the River” and “Misfits and Lovers,” each of which representing a different decade of the nearly 30 years since the Wallflowers’ first album. Dylan, looking like a cross between his father Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, commanding the stage with ease.

After a long day walking the course, however, the golf fans didn’t really get engaged until the first few notes of “6th Avenue Heartache,” the first single from the band’s 1996 breakout album, Bringing Down the Horse. Conversations about the day abruptly ended as people began swaying and singing along.

The Wallflowers perform during the PGA Tour Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort in Napa on Sept. 17, 2021.

It didn’t seem to be his typical crowd, as Dylan had fun throughout the show with the aesthetic differences between himself and the audience. “I don’t mean to call you out, but you’re wearing a blazer and shorts. Unbelievable,” he said at one point to a man near the front of the crowd, while he wore a hooded jacket over a T-shirt. “You’re pulling it off, man. It looks good.”

After a couple songs from the early ’00s in “Everything I Need” and “Breach,” he said, “We’ve played some older songs you know, so now we can play some newer songs.” Then the band launched into “Roots and Wings” and “I Hear the Ocean (When I Wanna Hear Trains)” from their new album, Exit Wounds, just released in July.

“We’ve played a bunch of our songs so far, right? Well, now we’re gonna play somebody else’s song,” Dylan declared. He explained that some songs mean more in some moments than others, and that this song means business right now, before playing Elvis Costello’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.”

Following the cover, the Wallflowers gave the people what they wanted with more from Bringing Down the Horse like “God Don’t Make Lonely Girls” and finally, after hearing the title shouted with increasing frequency, their Grammy-winning smash hit, “One Headlight.” They closed out what would have been the last song before the encore with “Who’s That Man Walking ‘Round My Garden?”

Scott Brown during the PGA Tour Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort in Napa on Sept. 17, 2021.

“We don’t have a lot of time left,” Dylan said in lieu of leaving the stage and returning for an encore. “We’re in wine country; you’ve got neighbors. I don’t really fit in here—look what I’m wearing. So we’re just gonna keep moving.”

The show then ended with a rousing cover of Tom Petty’s “The Waiting,” followed by their third hit single from 1996, “The Difference.”

Electronic musician and multi-instrumentalist Bardz opened the show with a DJ set that blended in live performance.

It was not easy to win over a group of people who had been on their feet all day and weren’t primarily there for a concert, especially because many of them didn’t realize the lineup for the night had changed, and they were expecting a very different band. Despite all that, The Wallflowers won over the crowd with tight musicianship, a healthy dose of classic songs and more than a little humor.

Brandon Garcelon contributed to this report; follow him at Twitter.com/Garcelon. Follow editor Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData. Follow photographer Nathan McKinley at Instagram.com/memories.by.mckinley.