Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Ketch Secor (left) and Morgan Jahnig, two members of Old Crow Medicine Show, perform Friday at the Salem Civic Center.

There is at least one significant difference between an Old Crow Medicine Show crowd and the audience for just about any other act these days: When it's time to raise a glowing object into the air, this crowd uses lighters, not cellphones.

Then again, they come out to see a band that rhymes "Roanoke" with "toke" in its rousing singalong "Wagon Wheel," so you know there are some smokers among them.

On Friday night at Salem Civic Center, Old Crow gave the lighter-waving, hell-raising crowd of 2,817 what it was looking for -- up-tempo boot-stompers and a few tunes to make them think. The band's fans might not have filled the about 5,000-capacity shed, but they made it noisy.

The attendance marked an increase from the 2,112 at the group's sold-out show in Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre a little more than a year ago. And the venue was more fitting -- a rowdy crowd can't try to rush the orchestra seats when there is no orchestra section to rush.

The two-set show was not much different musically than last year's show. Crowd favorites "Down Home Girl," "Humdinger," "Fall On My Knees," "Alabama High-Test" and "Tell It to Me" were on the set list. But musically, the band keeps getting sharper.

What started as a group of flailing wild men is still wild enough, but more refined. Ketch Secor's harmonica playing included some hip phrasing to go along with the post-Dylan blowing. New auxiliary man Cody Young filled out the sound nicely with Hammond organ sounds dialed in on a Nord keyboard, chunking mandolin and smart, tasty drumming. Willie Watson turned in some high lonesome work on "Next Go 'Round" and a slow, mournful version of the traditional blues "C.C. Rider." The lighters first came out on that one.

In fact, some of the best numbers were midtempo to slow. "Crazy Eyes" may be Secor's best song. And "Methamphetamine" was moving, even if it's hard to understand why the crowd cheers so hard about how that substance will ruin one's life.

The band wrapped up with a mostly electric encore, Secor getting a Rhodes electric piano sound on The Beatles' "Get Back." It sounded rough there at the end, but it showed that rough doesn't scare this medicine show.