Tom Gabel has one of rock’s best voices, a commanding bellow that snaps the listener to attention, assuming his band, Against Me!, hasn’t already done so.

Live Friday night at Jannus Landing, Gabel looked like he sounded – muscles taut, eyes squinted, right arm going from a right angle to fully extended as he churned out chords on a black Rickenbacker.

He was matched, intensity for intensity, by his band mates, particularly burly bassist Andrew Seward, who manhandled his Fender four-string throughout the show. Guitarist James Bowman ably spelled Gabel on vocals while drummer Warren Oakes combined passion with machine-like precision.

The Gainesville quartet performed the lion’s share of last year’s “New Wave,” album, as well as older gems such as “From Her Lips to God’s Ears (The Energizer),” “Miami,” “Don’t Lose Touch” and a particularly rollicking “Sink, Florida, Sink.”

Gabel’s a witty, insightful lyricist, and he’s learned to combine them with irresistible hooks. So the tale of a going-nowhere junkie in “Thrash Unreal” sneaks in under the “ba ba bas” of the chorus.

There were hints of The Clash in Against Me!’s sheer power of presentation, and of X and Social Distortion in the tight, brutally efficient guitars-bass-drums attack.

Mostly though, there was evidence that punk rock’s carcass, left for dead so often, was being re-animated again, just when we need it most.

Preceding Against Me!, Ted Leo was all nervous energy, every move a quick jab, his songs rapid fire staccato bursts that show an obvious debt to The Jam, but which skillfully mix in R&B, Celtic, folk and ska as well. 

With his band, The Pharmacists, Leo played a set that was full of stinging guitar lines and pointedly political lyrics, particularly the numbers from the recent “Rapid Response” EP, recorded to benefit protesters arrested during the recent Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

As much as he favors short, sharp shocks in his music, Leo also proved fond of guitar overdrive, facing his amp to create a barrage of feedback effects.

Opener Future of the Left played early (and I got there late).