The five members of Vinegar Creek Constituency have no problem playing in a bar, competing against the sound of booze being ordered, delivered and consumed.

Conversations always seem to grow too loud as the evening wears on, but the overall atmosphere suits Vinegar Creek's music. It might not be the ideal atmosphere for a tender love song, but the band, which features a classic bluegrass lineup that can deliver notes at blistering speed, can get and keep the attention of a bar crowd.

"We play at places where people are smashing beer bottles and screaming, and it's hard to hear anything," says Leonardo DiSanto, the Lancaster band's singer, guitarist and chief songwriter. "It's hard to play a ballad in a room like that. You have to play wall-to-wall, really high-energy stuff to keep people going."

The members of Vinegar Creek --DiSanto; Lemuel Charles Barnett, bass/vocals; Jeff Bryson, mandolin/vocals; Mark "Banjo Doc" Rast, banjo/vocals; and Pierre de Vitry, fiddle/vocals -- also are comfortable playing in so-called listening rooms, theaters where the crowd sits in padded chairs and is there expressly for the music.

The band, which is just as conversant with the Clash and Talking Heads as it is with Johnny Cash, Del McCoury and Steve Earle, enjoys playing for a rapt audience that's hanging on every note and syllable -- as long as it's not too quiet.

"We play some theaters where everyone's sitting down and it feels like you're being dissected in a laboratory," DiSanto says. "It's almost like being in the middle of a physics lecture because everybody's being so incredibly quiet."

Like a lot of bands, Vinegar Creek is trying to strike a balance between the raucousness of playing in a bar and the thoughtfulness of performing in a theater.

The members are hoping to strike that balance when they open for Philadelphia trio Hoots and Hellmouth at York's Capitol Theatre Friday as part of the CapLive music series.

The theater, which has recently hosted artists such as Josh Ritter, Deer Tick, Cowboy Junkies, Kathleen Edwards, Dawes, Joe Lewis and the Honeybears and Mountain Goats, has terrific acoustics and is comfortable but not stodgy. There are even a couple of small bars at the back of the theater.

"We can pull out songs at certain venues, a loud restaurant or a bar setting, and nobody really listens," Barnett says. "That's why we look forward to concerts like the one at the Capitol Theater. We can pull out songs that people are going to be able to pay attention to and listen to. There are songs we can't really portray that well as a band in a loud setting, where you can't really hear what's going on."

The members also are trying to figure out how to best portray Vinegar Creek as a recording band. The band members, veteran musicians who first started playing together in 2005, have recorded two CDs, "Vinegar Creek Constituency" (2008) and "Angel of the Last Waltz" (2010).

DiSanto and Burnett don't believe either album captured the essence of the band.

"One of the complaints I've heard about our previous albums is they don't capture the performances we create in a concert setting," Burnett says. "So we're going to concentrate on that live sound with no overdubbing."

The musicians say they will enter the studio early next year and plan to hire a yet-unnamed producer/engineer to oversee the project. The first two albums were recorded at Burnett's own studio, but the plan for this one is to record it somewhere else, though the location hasn't been decided upon.

"We're going to do it at an outside studio this time," DiSanto says. "We feel we'll all benefit from having somebody else involved with it, another set of ears to bounce things off of to get some feedback."

DiSanto says he has most of the songs written for the album. All will be road-tested before they get close to the studio.

"My view," Burnett says, "is I always want to play a song in front of an audience as soon as we can just barely play it. As soon as the basic framework comes together, I feel where it becomes strong is by playing it to a live audience. The interaction with the audience becomes part of the song, in a way."

And those audiences can be found in either bars or theaters.

Hoots & Hellmouth with

Vinegar Creek Constituency

Fri. 8 p.m. $14

Capitol Theatre

50 N. George St., York, 846-1111
www.strandcapitol.org