what horrible lights are you talking about?

were you shooting with the xt? if you dont have a tripod, you can try setting the camera down on the ground or somewhere thats not going to move. flash doesnt really help that much imo... as you can see in the red bimmer shot, i used the flash, but it only goes so far.

another thing is to raise your ISO, and open the aperture up to let in as much light as possible, but your best bet is to use a tripod and use a long shutter.