A lingering, distorted note hung in the air at the High Noon Saloon Saturday night. It was a few minutes before 1 a.m., and The Districts, a rock band from Lititz, Pennsylvania, had just left the stage following their encore. Two separate guitars hung, suspended by their straps from two amps. One had just toppled and been kicked by frontman Rob Grote. Instruments and cases were scattered around the stage. In short, the stage was in disarray.
In a sense, the state of the stage at the end of the show represented the music The Districts make. Not clean or tidy by any means, the Pennsylvania rockers create stirring music that doesn’t really fit within the lines.
Paired with the youthful energy of four guys who would be sophomores if they were in college, this type of music translated very well to a live setting Saturday.
Humbly walking onstage a little after 11:30 p.m., the band went into the track “Rocking Chair” from their self-titled 2014 EP. It did not even take two minutes for Grote’s banging head to shake off the hat he came out wearing. It also didn’t take very long for him to assume what seems to be his default on-stage posture: head to the side of the microphone, foot bouncing, back hunched over and springing up and down.
But Grote’s defining characteristic wasn’t his posture, it was his remarkable stage presence. The emotion that oozed from his vocals and his jerking mobility around the stage are seldom matched by other live acts. Watching Grote truly felt like he wasn’t holding anything back.
Perhaps the best proof of this was on “4th and Roebling,” a standout track from the group’s recent full-length debut, A Flourish and a Spoil. A song that instrumentally starts rather calmly with a bass line and light percussion before swelling into a much larger sound; Grote’s vocals were the essence of the song. He used his raw, coarse voice to convey emotional subject matter such as self-doubt and relationships in flux.
While Grote’s presence and vocal delivery were interesting, other parts of the show felt safe. The band stuck to tracks from their two latest releases and didn’t really do much in terms of improvisation or modifying their sound from the releases. The result was satisfying since they delivered songs their audience wanted to hear but also disappointing due to lack of risk.
The band, however, did show skills in being adaptable. When Grote had a problem with his pedals and forced to fix it between songs, the other three members kept the beat going, averting the vibe-killing silence that otherwise would have ensued. Later, Grote broke a string on his acoustic guitar on “Peaches” and had to use his electric guitar on the next song, “Suburban Smell,” which he had been performing acoustically, according to setlist.fm.
The musical highlight of the night came in the encore, when the band performed “Young Blood.” Nearly a nine-minute track, the first part of the song sounded just like any other from The Districts. Then, after the quiet that would normally indicate the end of any other song in the band’s discography, the bass continued, a light guitar came back in. After about two minutes of this, Grote’s vocals emerged as he repeated the line, “It’s a long way down from the top to the bottom / It’s a long way back to a high from where I am,” over and over. It is a beautiful track that was miles better live. The second half of the song was the pinnacle of energy for the night in what had already been an energetic set. After this, any sliver of suspicion the band could have been holding back was succinctly erased.
This full investment in the set was refreshing. While some acts may craft a “cool” and distant persona on stage, it’s nice to see a band go all out. Patrons of the High Noon Saloon had to feel like they got their money’s worth from the show. The wall-to-wall energy and emotion displayed by The Districts felt as if they were gifting a small part of themselves to those in attendance. That in itself was worth the price of admission.
