In a rock ‘n’ roll club in downtown Oakland, excited spectators crowd around the stage drinks in hand; but it’s not a band they’re enthralled with, it’s a scientist in a white lab coat.

East Bay Nerd Nite is a place for a large segment of people that find themselves somewhere between the extremes of the antisocial academic crowd and the wild partiers, said co-boss Ian Davis.

Tuesday was the second time Oakland has hosted a Nerd Nite; the event is popular in San Francisco and the first East Bay show had a good turnout, said regular attendee Tom Liebowitz.

The topics range from local history to all branches of science, but they “usually relate back to sex or drinking or something like that somehow,” Liebowitz added jokingly.

The presentations last Tuesday covered the history of the Fruitvale district of Oakland, nano mechanical engineering used to fight leukemia and photo and chemi luminescence.

While well researched and chock-full of information, “A Nerd Nite talk is very different from a regular lecture,” said co-boss Rick Karnesky.

The talks are fast-paced, light and humorous, with smart jokes that elicited much more than a few low chuckles.

Karnesky and Davis became involved in Nerd Nite after attending a San Francisco event and being driven to look deeper into it.

They found that Nerd Nite is going on in cities all over the world, including Boston, New York, Austin, Philadelphia, Berlin and Dublin.

Davis, a senior at UC Berkeley, said he was even able to attend a couple events when he visited Europe.

He and Karnesky recognized the opportunity the East Bay holds for this sort of event distinctly from San Francisco, where there are other “smart parties” that might be interesting for the studious type, but become implausible when long transportation times become a factor.

They got in touch with Bart Bernhardt, an organizer of the San Francisco Nerd Nite and began reaching out to their professors, colleagues and friends in scientific fields to find speakers.

The result of their combined efforts made the Bay the first metropolitan area to host two separate Nerd Nites.

Attendees seemed comfortable switching between the dense powerpoint talks and the social aspect. They could be observed playfully diffusing awkward eye contact with their friends on the way back from the bar by half dance-walking.

They ranged from students to graduates and professionals, networked by their desire for intellectual stimulation in a social setting.

Many had bags of garlic oil fries from Five Ten Burger, an artisan food truck parked right outside.

The final presentation concluded with a dazzling chemi luminescence demonstration, and the event even ended in time for those of us with class or work in the morning to get home at a reasonable hour.

The next East Bay Nerd Nite is Dec. 14 at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, and talks scheduled for that show include black holes, audiovisual systems, and observing weather from space.