On Thursday, February 24, the Orange Peel brought together two interesting bands with country roots—but neither offered anything close to the music you hear on today’s “country” radio stations.

The Old 97’s are a Dallas-based band and one of the early alt-country pioneers. Formed in 1993, the group has more than a dozen albums and mixes a bit of twang with pop sensibilities. The show opened with Those Darlins, now based out of Nashville, and just getting ready to release its second album in a genre one might call country punk.

As the headliners, the Old 97’s put on a great show full of energy and ripped through 25 songs. Rhett Miller, with pretty-boy looks and plenty of butt shakin’ may be the Jon Bon Jovi of the alt-country world. He sings lead on most songs, plays guitar, and is the group’s primary songwriter. His voice sometimes cracked and faded, but he offered plenty of enthusiasm throughout the night and left the stage drenched with sweat after nearly two hours of performing.

Rhett was joined on stage by longtime mates Murry Hammond, who sings lead on a couple songs and plays bass, Ken Bethea on lead guitar, and Philip Peeples on drums.

The band kicked off the show with “Grand Theatre” from its new album, The Grand Theatre, Vol. 1. Asheville-area fans may have recognized songs in the set from this album including “Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You),” “The Dance Class,” “A State of Texas,” “You Smoke Too Much,” “Please Hold on While the Train Is Moving,” and “Champaign, Illinois,” which Rhett mentioned was co-written with Bob Dylan. (While it is true that the two share a song-writing credit on the song, it’s actually Rhett’s new lyrics put to the old Bob Dylan tune “Desolation Row.”)

With an extensive catalog, the Old 97’s played many longtime fan favorites such as “Jagged,” “Lonely Holiday,” and “Niteclub.” The song, “Question,” which fans of the TV show Scrubs may recall from the episode when Carla finally accepted Turk’s marriage proposal, was a popular sing-along for the audience.

For the encore, Rhett came out alone to play two acoustic tunes. The first, “I Need to Know Where I Stand,” was from his 2009 self-titled solo album. The second, “Come Around,” was from Rhett’s 2002 album The Instigator. The rest of the band then joined Rhett on stage for some foot-stompin’, crowd-pleasin’ favorites: “Doreen,” “Big Brown Eyes,” “Dance With Me,” and the big finish with “Time Bomb.”

Those Darlins opened the show with lots of liveliness in their 12-song set. With a new CD (Screws Get Loose) coming out soon, many of the tunes were from the new disc, but they offered a few old faves, too. “Red Light Love” and the show-stopping “Funstix Party” had Darlins enthusiasts singing and bouncing in approval.

Similar to punk legends The Ramones, the three ladies of the band have adopted a common stage surname, Darlin. The band features Jessi, Nikki, and Kelley Darlin accompanied by drummer Linwood Regensburg.

The three women share vocal (and songwriting) duties and swap up instruments on a regular basis. The band rocked the house by starting the show with “Be My Bro” from the new album and kept a rapid-fire pace throughout the show.

More than three hours after the show began at 8 p.m., music fans walked out of The Orange Peel exhausted and content after watching a show that was a little bit country and a little bit rock-and-roll.