It seemed all wrong. Few double bills would be as well-designed as this one for pint-holding audience members to slip into indie-rock caricatures of themselves and do some weekend liver damage. You know, get a little fuzzy between the ears for Crooked Fingers’ boozy growl and then let your neck go all rubbery for Spoon’s precision-pop twitches and yelps. But it’s that most sobering night of the weekend (Sunday) and this church-annex auditorium isn’t serving any drinks. The stage is about as high as a piece of plywood on a couple of matchbooks, and I haven’t seen this many students sitting indian-style on a carpet since Low at the Rug Emporium, 1996.

Crooked Fingers could’ve come across as old, bitter and invisible to the all-ages crowd, but that rarely happens with this band. For one, singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann stands six-foot-seven; he doesn’t need a stage. Sometimes the band doesn’t even require amplification—previous gigs have sometimes been performed acoustically, bolstered by Bachmann’s impressive vocal projection. Then there’s stand-up bassist Jo Jameson, with his big mustache and grin, animatedly jerking around his, um, large piece of wood.

Though Crooked Fingers is touring in support of its third and latest album, Red Devil Dawn, about half of the set was culled from its 1999 self-titled debut. “New Drink For The Old Drunk,” with its martial drumbeat and lyrical theme of pity and scorn, is the closest the band has to a signature song; “Broken Man” showed off Bachmann’s mellower croon; and “Black Black Ocean” is a forceful tune about self-preservation, but unfortunate acoustics made the drums buzz loudly over the melody.

There was some disconnect between the band (whose vibe is convivial and commiserating) and the audience (who, stoically, had yet to muster the evening’s vibe at all). Bachmann’s sole spoken interaction consisted of an odd, open-ended story about his dream of being pursued by a snake. A Springsteen cover (“The River”) largely failed to connect with the Ivy League students in attendance. But only during the band’s customary a cappella pub singalong at the end of set closer “A Little Bleeding”—with the backing Fingers standing shoulder-to-shoulder, swaying in a chorus of “la la la la”s—did things seem incongruous to the point of being wrong. At this time, the audience should’ve raised empty bottles instead of arch eyebrows.