The mood at Davis Square’s Gallery Bershad last Saturday night was oddly upbeat given the situation: earlier in the month the gallery announced that at the April 13 conclusion of its current exhibition, which has been renamed “It’s Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away,” the art and performance space will close its doors to the public. It’s a money thing, and the gallery is looking for new investors. But for now, Bershad’s promising two-year run at 99 Dover Street appears to be over.

Nevertheless, there was plenty for gallery director Roland Smart to be pleased about Saturday night: a full house of art and music types milling about with plastic cups of wine and beer and checking out the kind of hip but low-key, off-the-beaten-path rock show that Boston could certainly use more of. The bill featured what might seem an odd mix of performers: Stephen Brodsky, the young and scruffy frontman of the rising Boston prog-punk band Cave In, fresh off a stint opening shows for A Perfect Circle and a week of heavy major-label petting; indie singer/songwriter Tiffany Anders, who is the daughter of indie filmmaker Allison Anders; and the Colbourn Mancini Project, a newish fixture on the local scene featuring Fuzzy singer/guitarist Hilken Mancini and Buffalo Tom bassist Chris Colbourn backed by most of the rest of Fuzzy. To top it off, former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold was on hand to spin tunes between sets.

If there was a theme, it was that all three of the featured acts were works in progress. It was a bill perfectly suited to an alternative space, where the expectations that come with paying a club cover (a $5 donation was requested at the door) are cast aside and the performers aren’t competing with the incessant clatter of cash-register drawers. Brodsky’s solo incarnation couldn’t be much further from his role in Cave In — alone, strumming an acoustic guitar, he came off as a fresher-faced Elliott Smith, sheepishly singing confessional folkish pop tunes. He hasn’t figured out how to use his voice quite as well as Smith in a stripped-down setting, but he’s headed in the right direction. Anders, on the other hand, is a small, dark-haired woman with a big voice who tends to benefit from the backing of bass, drums, and electric guitar on her PJ Harvey–produced full-length debut, Funny Cry Happy Gift (Up). On her own with a guitar, she seemed a little hard-pressed when it came to defining the musical contours of her melancholy melodies.

The musical elements — a solid rhythm section, lap-steel slide guitar, dueling boy/girl vocals — are certainly there in the Colbourn Mancini Project. All they need now is a real band name, which they’re said to be working on, and the sense of band identity that comes with getting more than a handful of gigs under your belt. For now, they sound, well, like a countrified cross between Fuzzy and Buffalo Tom. And that’s not a bad starting point at all.