“I think of myself as somewhat of a journalist,” declared Laurie Anderson in a Friday evening, post-performance talk-back following an extraordinary concert. Her striking words and music elicited a spontaneous and deeply felt standing ovation at the end of an intermission-less tour of hard-hitting cultural and political commentaries.

Anderson, although the “star” of her show, is such a self-effacing reporter that “Homeland,” her multi-song essay addressing the precarious post-9/11 world of the past seven years, struck musical and cultural notes rarely pursued with such vigor by preening mainstream celebrity journalists.

Anderson did this with wit as well as with a broad and penetrating sense of wisdom. That kept her 1,000-plus fans at the Lied Center, both young and old, at their edge of their musical, emotional and intellectual seats for more than 90 minutes, which is a remarkable tribute to the vitality and stamina of the 61-year-old artist.

“Underwear Gods,” by imagining the descent into the streets from giant billboards of “huge people in underwear with, you know, perfect legs” tickled funny bones while also calling into question our all-pervasive consumer culture, whose often narcissistic values implicitly run counter to a nation supposedly at war.

“Underwear Gods,” by evoking memories of Federico Fellini’s “The Temptation of Dr. Antonio” (1962), in which Swedish blonde Anita Ekberg’s voluptuous billboard image comes to life, alit up intertextual cross-references, adding yet other frames of reference to Anderson’s invitations to dig more deeply into the present by invoking the past while also pointing, often ominously, to the future.

In this and her 15 other seamlessly woven originals, Anderson was ably supported by a trio of highly regarded New York-based composer-performers – keyboardist Kevin Hearn, violist Ervin Kang and electric bassist Skull Sternson, whose insinuating lines enlivened the concert’s arresting soundscapes with pitch-perfect counter-melodies, rhythms and harmonies.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the evening was that in “Homeland,” the fabled multimedia artist was offering a major project without media. That, as she shared in her post-performance remarks, was a painful decision in that she discarded visuals in favor of trusting “the power of people’s imagination” to engage the “world of words.”

The minimalist stage setting, placing Anderson at her electric keyboard with her colleagues flanked to either side, with two tiers of floor candles to the front and rear of the quartet, was hugely effective in italicizing Anderson.

Whether set to percolating techno-beats as in “Why Do People Hate Us?,” unfolding as lyrical dreamscapes such as “The Lark,” or accented by tape loops or world music gestures, Anderson’s compelling voice, at times dropped an octave into the male tessitura via a voice modulator, engaged the audience fully.

“Homeland,” by cinematizing words and music directed to the most salient and painful aspects of our overheated and polarized public policy, provided an open-ended common ground upon which to construct a perhaps more thoughtful political discourse addressing both national assets and, significantly, liabilities.