PORTLAND – Thank the rock gods that moshing is now so passe. Call me perverse, call me a prude, but I’ve always preferred the disaffected mod shuffle, the pogo, and the rock-affirming head nod to the knucklehead flail. Nevertheless, there will always be kids who want a rock show to be more like a wrestling match than entertainment. And kids were in the majority at the amazing Strokes show at the State Theater on Tuesday night.

Now kids at rock concerts isn’t anything surprising; it’s just that there were so many baby faces belonging to adolescents and teenagers in a crowd one would expect to be mostly 21 and up. A testament to the power and sway of MTV or the imminent death of the boy band? Maybe. But here’s the thing: It’s the kids – the young ones – who sometimes know where rock is at. I mean, The Beatles, the Stones and The Who weren’t exactly considered “adult music” at the beginning of their careers, either.

The night began with The Realistics, a New York City group whose energy and fun-infused, angular mod-rock were a perfect complement to the headliners.

Then there was Sloan. Sloan, a great band that’s been around awhile, have put out a good number of albums and have always done things their way, but they lack a certain “oomph” live. Their set was a good time to find refuge in the restricted 21-and-up balcony section.

After making the crowd wait a good half-hour, The Strokes took the stage around 10 p.m. Smokey, snarly and surly, they efficiently launched into their set.

Live, the Strokes were everything a fan could ask for. They were a tight quintet blaring out their songs with immense rock swagger. They proved themselves as more than a studio anomaly, a producer’s conception. They were a real live band, and, despite the attitude they project onstage, were actually very eager to please the audience.

They plowed through every song from their sole album, “Is This It.” Actually, “When It Started” seemed to be missing, but fans got “New York City Cops” instead. The band also debuted some new songs such as “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” “You Talk Way Too Much,” and “The Way It Is,” all of which sounded, well, like The Strokes – fast, cheeky and stripped down to the basics.

In the center of the stage, leaning toward the audience, singer Julian Casablancas growled the night away. At the end of some of the band’s more intense songs, he sliced his arms through the air, Elvis-style, signaling an abrupt stop. To the left of Julian, Nick Valensi effortlessly worked his guitar like Slash or Keith Richards, with a cigarette in his mouth. Beside him, Nikolai Fraiture plunked away on his bass and loomed like a great, rhythmic man-child.

On the opposite side of the stage, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s arm worked like a piston on his axe while his curly mop bobbed furiously. And behind it all, Fab Moretti beat the heck out of his drums with puffs of cigarette smoke occasionally shooting up toward the stage lights behind him.

While some of the crowd’s younger set might have been a bit confused initially as to what type of concert they had actually gone to, by the tumultuous end of “Take It Or Leave It,” the band’s closing song, everyone was doing these things: following the rhythm with their feet or heads and enjoying the fervor of honest-to-goodness rock ‘n’ roll.