Five songs into Wednesday night’s Dawes show, Taylor Goldsmith asked how many in the crowd of about 300 had seen the band before. Maybe a third or so whooped and hollered in response.
“This is for the first-timers,” the band’s frontman said before the Los Angeles foursome tore into an incendiary version of “When My Time Comes” from its first album, “North Hills,” at the Taft Theatre Ballroom.
The time had come to dial up the intensity.
