Photo: Jamie Hernández

Nashville’s endless summer marched on with Wednesday night’s Kings of Leon show at Ascend Amphitheater. A yellow quarter moon was rising in a clear sky with balmy temps as we joined the Nashville rock superstars for the sold-out 6,800-person sing-along. At quarter past 8 p.m., the band took the stage, and lead singer Caleb Followill addressed the audience for the first and last time for nearly an hour:

“This is something we’ve never done before,” he said. “We’re going to play you the whole album tonight.”

WALLS, the band’s seventh full-length, drops Oct. 14, and for the next 45 minutes, KOL played the record from beginning to end — kicking off a 24-song set with 10 tunes that hardly anyone knows. It was an uncharacteristically bold move for a band that we've long wanted to see take more chances onstage, a space where the Followills have always been fairly reserved performers, opting instead to nail the sonics of their studio recordings. And in the beginning of this was a reserved — albeit supportive — audience, making the WALLS portion of the show an amphitheater-sized live listening party under the stars.

The synth intro and opening “Waste a Moment” had us wondering if we’d gone to the wrong show. After all, it’s been a long time since the Aha Shake Heartbreak days when we first fell in love with the band’s messy guitars and inscrutable lyrics about milk and rodeos. But rest assured, when Caleb’s sandpaper croon came in, we were right back in the pocket.

If Wednesday’s show was any indication, WALLS is decidedly heavier on the rock than KOL's last couple torch-ballad-laden records, although it finds plenty of variance inside the genre. From the guitar-hook-driven mid-tempo “Reverend” to the bouncy jangle of “Around the World” (RIYL early Franz Ferdinand or Vampire Weekend), the band has perhaps heard about enough from critics decrying KOL's anthem-laden arena-friendly sound. Or (refreshingly) maybe the Followills are excited about something again. The highly dance-able “Eyes on You” sounds like Billy Idol made over for 2016, while “Wild” takes a cue or two from The Cure.

As the band capped the first set with WALLS title track — released as a single last month — we noticed scattered audience members singing along. But Wednesday’s show was in an outdoor theater, and the play, titled “Kings of Leon in Two Acts,” had a four-minute intermission in which the band had enough time to pee — provided they didn’t mind sharing a stall — before returning to play all the hits.

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

When the band launched into “The Bucket," the night's lone Aha Shake selection, we noticed for first time what would be a new reality for Kings of Leon: slowing down the once-frenetic early hits by a few clicks and settling into a comfortable groove. The same was true with “Crawl,” off 2008’s Only By the Night. Does this signify a maturation for the band? Gone is the long hair and mania of yore; its members (save for drummer Nathan Followill) have shorn locks and look like their most pressing concerns are getting their children into the right Montessori school.

Ten songs in, “Pyro” off 2010’s Come Around Sundown, and the brothers and cousin Followill were giving the packed crowd exactly what they wanted: a chance to sing along. Cutting out for a few bars, the band let crowd take over, singing back to their beloved local sons. By this point, seats and grass patches hadn't had asses in them for about an hour.

“Are we boring you yet?” Caleb asked sarcastically.

Could-have-been-a-hit-on-country-radio crowd favorite “Back Down South” was punctuated by peculiar archival footage from ‘50s era Nashville. Was that a segregated public pool? We sure didn’t see a scene like this playing out in it. But before we had time for a longer look, classic Hatch Print posters for Cash, Cline, Merle and Dolly took over the screen, leaving us to our thoughts.

Come around 10 p.m., lead guitarist Matthew Followill plucked his way into the opening riff of “Sex on Fire,” and what a way to go out. Does Caleb still have the high notes? Or was he intentionally deferring to the audience to sing the chorus back at him? Just whose sex is really on fire here? One of many things to ponder as we walked out of Ascend shoulder to shoulder with Nashvillians new and old, celebrating a hometown band that broke big before It City did.

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

Photo: Jamie Hernandez

Photo: Jamie Hernandez