Ragtag group of rockers rollick 'n' roll at Rodfest

The sold-out event, which donated all proceeds (including sales of merchandise and raffle tickets) to the scholarship in Moynahan's name at Stonehill College, got off to an unpromising start with the Bowen Street Band, whose jammy ambling offered blues licks without the blues and funk grooves without the funk. It was up to Cassavettes (whose lead singer Glenn Yoder works for boston.com) to inject some energy into the show with rootsy takes on power pop, Coldplay-ish anthems and the occasional spitfire country blaster.

Led by Moynahan's cousin Kier Byrnes, Three Day Threshold followed with a sharp, tight-pocketed set of hard country barnburners like "Billy," the freight-train fast "Uni," and cut-time stomps like the dirty (but not greasy) "Chicken Shack" and Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream."

Rogue Heroes gave the evening a stylistic shift, drawing from the post-punk new wave and focusing nerviness and clipped, driving drumbeats into angsty power-trio rock. With members of Cassavettes dancing like good-natured idiots behind them, they provided a totally different (if neatly complementary) energy to the evening, especially on the Dropkick Murphys-like "Good Old Boys Don't Die."

A return to country music came via Girls, Guns & Glory, which featured former members of Moynahan's own failed attempts at playing music. Frontman Ward Hayden, who in his angular suit and half-pompadour looked like a factory second at a Lyle Lovett outlet store (or a member of Split Enz), seemed less jazzed by the music he was playing than by the audience's reaction.

But the band brought the goods on the Mexican-accented find-a-girl-to-dance-with song "Suzie" and a fierce medley of Jimmie Rodgers's "T For Texas" and Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues." As soon as the latter ended at 1:05, the lights went up and stayed up despite Hayden's pleas for one last song. The evening ended without goodbyes or thank yous. But there's always next year.