It wasn’t a dour occasion, really. In fact, until mandolinist Chris Thile offered a few words of audience thanks at evening’s end that came across as a commiseration, you never would have thought Nickel Creek was calling it a night. For good. For now. The sold-out performance at the Singletary Center for the Arts, the youthful acoustic group’s fourth concert at the venue in just under five years, came as part of the final stage of its Farewell (For Now) Tour.

The dubious trek title means that Nickel Creekers Thile, fiddler Sara Watkins and her guitarist brother Sean Watkins will soon amiably split for an indefinite period after having played together since they were children. To its huge credit, the trio didn’t pump the two-and-a-quarter hour performance with any sentimentality other than the kind that already existed in soft-focus acoustic pop hits like The Lighthouse’s Song , which was goosed last night by a lengthy fiddle interlude and jam.

Instead, it was business as usual for the trio. Expertly augmented by acoustic bassist, clogger and onetime Lexingtonian Mark Schatz, the firm of Watkins, Thile and Watkins employed bluegrass chops that embraced tradition only when needed. Most of the performance, as has long been the case with Nickel Creek, leaned to the contemporary. There were progressive, new grass exchanges on bouzouki (by Thile) and fiddle at the lip of the stage during the instrumental Scotch and Chocolate .

Thematically, though, the show forged bluegrass music’s endless fascination with death into a sea chanty called House Carpenter that Thile also used as a brief commentary on the University of Kentucky’s weekend football loss. “The devil in this song,” he said, “will be played by the University of Florida.” And, my oh my, these players love to sing about busted-up love.