YOUNGSTOWN – The Doobie Brothers brought its 50th anniversary tour to the Youngstown Community Amphitheatre on Wednesday with an added bit of nostalgia.

With an air quality alert caused by Canadian wildfires, there was a haze in the air, the kind that was the norm at arena rock shows in the ’70s, thanks to cigarettes and, well, other things.

Actually, it wasn’t that noticeable, despite Patrick Simmons joking early on he hadn’t seen anything this smoky since Willie Nelson’s tour bus. It certainly didn’t seem to affect the band, which played 24 songs over two-and-a-quarter hours without intermission for a sell-out crowd of about 4,500 people.

The Doobie Brothers really are two bands — the one led by Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons in the early and mid ’70s, and the one that Michael McDonald became the driving creative force of starting with the “Minute by Minute” album in 1978.

The current setlist does an impressive job of walking that tightrope to satisfy both factions.

Johnston was part of the 2022 leg of the tour but had to drop out this year due to back issues. Simmons, the one constant in the band’s half-century of music, was there to carry the flag for the OG version of the Doobies, and bass player John Cowan capably handled many of Johnston’s original vocals along with Simmons.

It also was nice to hear McDonald take a verse on “Eyes of Silver,” a song that predates his tenure in the band.

Until this anniversary celebration started, McDonald really hadn’t been a part of the Doobies for 25 years, so hearing that distinctive voice on “What a Fool Believes,” “Minute by Minute,” “You Belong to Me” and “Takin’ It to the Streets” was a highlight.

And any band that has McDonald playing keyboard and organ for it is a better group because of it.

McDonald also stepped out from behind his keyboards to play mandolin on “Slack Key Soquel Rag,” a deep cut from the band’s “Stampede” album that featured John McFee on pedal steel and Simmons finger-picking acoustic guitar playing.

Simmons did most of the talking, mixing old-age jokes with song introductions, and he thanked the audience members for their decades of support and for helping to get the band inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.

Multi-instrumentalist McFee added many colors to the band’s musical palette, and the real MVP of the night may have been saxophone player Marc Russo, who played one knockout solo after another. I confess I don’t really think of the saxophone when I think of the Doobie Brothers’ music, but Russo was as integral to the band’s sound Wednesday as Clarence Clemons was to the E Street Band.

The band played one new song, “Better Days” from its 2021 release “Liberte,” and a couple of interesting covers, a great version of “Heard It Through the Grapevine” played mid-set and sung by McDonald and a show-closing jam on Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic.”

Mostly, though, they stuck to the hits, delivering a packed finale that included “Jesus Is Just Alright,” “What a Fool Believes,” “Long Train Runnin'” and “China Grove” to close the main set, followed by “Black Water,” “Takin’ It to the Streets” and “Listen to the Music” for the encores.