Someone is trying to start a mosh pit. In a break between songs, Kaila McIntyre-Bader, lead vocals and piano for Big Tree, smiles and asks the audience to “please dance nicely.”

The Bay Area’s Big Tree, a quintet made up of Sarah Lawrence alums, played to an enthusiastic crowd this past Saturday at Buddhist House.  The night began with performances by Wesleyan’s own Almonds and Elephants and Oberlin’s Givers of Sweet Love. Big Tree is a self-described “uncategorizable” band that lists Tom Waits and Miles Davis as influences and plays songs that meld together woozy folk rock, infectious pop, and jazz. Although they may be hard to define, there is no doubt about the great intensity and enthusiasm with which they played their set. Grins rarely faded from the band’s faces as they paired beautiful female-led harmonies with upbeat piano and guitar.  The crowd matched their energy, meeting the set with crowd surfing and the aforementioned moshing attempts.  The band has long been popular on campus, and their fans in the crowd sang along to “Move to the Mountains” and “Little Brother” from Big Tree’s self-produced, self-titled debut and danced just as enthusiastically to newer songs.

According to their website, other Big Tree influences include cliffs, mountains, and massive bodies of water, natural fascinations that find themselves in the band’s poetic lyrics and practice.  A year ago, Big Tree started an account with Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects in the arts, and raised over $8,000 to purchase a van that runs on biodiesel. Before the show on Saturday, the band held a demonstration at Buddhist House to show the environmental and cost-effective benefits of touring in a vegetable-oil-waste-fueled vehicle.  Big Tree is currently on tour throughout the Northeast, having driven their van cross-country to both play infectious live shows and educate several college campuses about environmentalism on the way.