By Julia Lankisch, Staff Writer

Seeing Peach Pit made me feel like I was witnessing a garage rock band playing for their friends but in the very best way.

Bogart’s, a club with a capacity of around 1,500 people, itself made the concert worth attending. 

Upon entering the establishment, you see a brick wall that each performer who visited the venue has signed. An unbelievable number of famous acts have performed on that stage: Elton John, U2, Ray Charles, Radiohead and many more. It was incredible to imagine each of those huge figures on a stage just 20 feet away.

In the presence of all this greatness, Peach Pit and their opener, The Districts, had a lot to live up to.

The Districts weren’t advertised as the concert opener, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know if I would have recognized their name even if they were.

However, they opened with the only song of theirs that I happened to know, “Long Distance.” They made the most of the time they had, and the performance made me want to listen to more of their music.

The Districts have a fun sound. They love playing around with pedals to create unique tones for each of their songs. Their vocals are dreamy and subdued, in true indie rock fashion, and they actually have several songs that it seems a lot of people know, despite their low monthly listenership. If you like The Strokes, I recommend you check them out.

After the Districts played, the crowd got pretty impatient. It was definitely a mosh pit kind of night; Cincinnati is not wanting for Peach Pit fans. The best part is the people attending the concert didn’t seem like the type you’d see pushing to the front at Lollapalooza. Rather, we all seemed like indie kids who were ready to watch this band sing about love and other drugs.

Peach Pit’s lead singer wasted no time getting off the stage right after getting on it. He ran from backstage directly into the crowd and flung himself on top of the people in the middle. It was a very exciting start to the performance, to say the least. 

I wish I could say they kept that energy the whole show, but it fizzled pretty quickly. That’s not to say they were boring to watch, but the band definitely didn’t channel this hard rock energy for more than the first one or two songs.

They played and sang like their studio recordings, but changed enough of the music and improvised enough solos that you know they’re genuinely talented and not just memorizers trying to make it through a live show.

Live talent is one thing I absolutely require of the artists I like, and Peach Pit met that mark. However, I will say they weren’t particularly riveting to watch. One of my favorite things about live music and attending concerts  is when there’s a really engaging performer, which I felt this show was lacking.

Peach Pit’s vibe feels like they were probably pretty popular in college, like their friends could tell they were really good in their niche so they had a couple of roadies in their hometown. As Vancouver natives, it makes it a little hard to see them as the “cool” guys they portray themselves as, though that doesn’t necessarily make their performance less engaging.

I think that despite the cool guy persona they try to exude, they secretly — or maybe not-so-secretly, if you check out their album cover turtlenecks — they’re just a group of nerdy indie dudes that had nothing better to do in their free time than make some sick new music. Clearly, they did it well enough to quit their jobs and earn a living that way, and I had a pretty good time watching them do their thing.