It's another grim sign of the times — metal detectors at the Taft Theatre.

        The new security measures delayed Tuesday's concert by Alison Krauss & Union Station. But all was forgotten when the contemporary bluegrass singer led her all-star band through her best, most dynamic tour show to date.

        “We're quite aware of everything that's been going on in the past few weeks,” dobro player Jerry Douglas told the near-capacity crowd. “But we're here to play music and get you away from that.”

        And for almost two hours, they did. Past concerts by Ms. Krauss have leaned too heavily on her signature folk-bluegrass sound, a sort of “Lilith-grass” hybrid. But the addition of singer/guitarist/mandolinist Dan Tyminski gives Union Station a strong hard-core bluegrass sound.

        The third star of the night was Mr. Douglas, “the greatest dobro player the world has ever known,” in Ms. Krauss' dead-on words. He managed to upstage Bela Fleck on the latter's “Bluegrass Sessions” tour last year. His playing behind Ms. Krauss' delicate vocals was achingly beautiful.

        The result was an evening of silk and denim, as Ms. Krauss sang her sophisticated pop-folk ballads, “Forget About It,” “Ghost in This House,” “The Lucky One,” “Let Me Touch You a While” and the title song to her new CD, New Favorite. Her longtime accompanists, singer/banjoist/guitarist Ron Block and singer/bassist Barry Bales provided their usual sensitive backing.

        But her gentler pieces alternated with Mr. Tyminski's more driving, trad-grass — “The Boy Who Couldn't Hoe Corn,” the Louvin Brothers' “Tiny Broken Heart” and, of course his “hit” from O Brother Where Art Thou?, “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.”

        As she introduced that song, Ms. Krauss' comic timing was as smooth as her fiddling. She told the crowd how Mr. Tyminski told his wife about singing in the movie and her response: “Your voice, coming out of George Clooney? Why Dan, that's my fantasy!”

        Ms. Krauss seems to have gotten a bit more traditional, leaning into her fiddling with real gusto and grinning at Mr. Tyminski's old-time bluegrass vocals. She even sounded a bit high-lonesome herself when she sang Bad Company's “Oh, Atlanta” to close her show.

        Her first encore was one of her own O Brother songs, as she and her band members sang the old gospel song, “Down In the River to Pray.” It was a perfect summation of the evening — at once delicate and powerful, traditional and contemporary, truly timeless.

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