PROVIDENCE — The guy brought doughnuts. What can you say?

Michael Bublé hit the Dunkin’ Donuts Center last night with a show that was equal parts solid next-generation crooning and truly humorous self-deprecating shtick. Feeding the men in the front row (who, Bublé imagined, were grumpy at having been dragged out with the female-oriented crowd) was just the beginning of the full-service fun.

While the Bublé mold is that of a retro-styled big-band crooner, perhaps his most welcome musical contribution is an expansion of the definition of “standard.” Last night’s set list included evergreens such as “Call Me Irresponsible,” “I’ve Got the World On a String” and a nice ballad version of “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You,” he also included a hushed version of Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind,” a rip through Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and a lovely “Me and Mrs. Jones,” all done in styles that evoked the piano bar or the big-band stage.

The Canadian singer’s dips into the adult-contemporary pop mode, with the hit singles “Home” and “Lost,” were less distinctive than his jazz forays, but tuneful nonetheless. Some enterprising Michael Bublé-type might turn them into jazz standards one day. But the real excitement came from the big-band numbers, with an eight-piece horn section leading the way.

Bublé’s long forays into conversation with the audience — hugging kids, getting grabbed by women, etc. — sometimes goes on for a while, but he evidently knows what he’s doing: It’s great PR, it’s memorable, and what would another song or two have accomplished that the rest of the 90-minute set didn’t? During his last show in Providence, in 2006, he began to lose the audience, but it didn’t happen last night, partly because there was musical anarchy — from a beat-box break in “Call Me Irresponsible” to a verse and a half of “YMCA” — congruent to the histrionics.

The fun continued when Bublé introduced the horn section, leading to a long bit of shtick including a staged hissy fit that saw Bublé leave the stage and trombonist Nick Vayenas give a funny monologue about Bublé’s diva tendencies. Of course he was caught, and an instrument switch was in the offing.

(Party-pooping note: Bublé introduced Vayenas as being from Providence. A quick Internet search reveals that Vayenas is a “native” of whatever town the show is in.)

Still, along with the self-deflating humor (not all of which is printable) and the appealingly awkward dancing, Bublé showed his musical bona fides early and often, culminating in a snippet of “Don’t Be Cruel” with an unplugged acoustic guitar and three harmonizing band members around one microphone, and his usual ending bit — singing the last verse of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” without a microphone — clearly audible in the back row. The shtick and the loose-tie sex appeal may have been as high as an elephant’s eye, but the husbands in the crowd had enough musical meat to chew on.

The opening act, Naturally 7, gave a stunning performance of what they called “vocal play” — a cappella music that includes uncanny imitations of electric instruments. The distinctions between vocal and instrumental music fell away during their spiritually influenced set of hip-hop and R&B-tinged originals and covers (including a radical reworking of “In the Air Tonight”), and the audience was suitably awed. They joined Bublé on stage for “That’s Life.”

rmassimo@projo.com