Sam Roberts Band / The Stills

This was a weird, weird show. First off, the Sam Roberts Band seems way too predicated on the two front-guys being good-looking--they are, but when that becomes the most salient feature of a band, there's a problem, and there was absolutely nothing in their set to distract from this. Very standard vaguely alt-rock stuff.

Now, The Stills. I'd liked Logic Will Break Your Heart Forever--it had a tight, enjoyable sound, and every now and then they hit on a smart line or two (from "Gender Bombs": the sordid way the loaded phrases infiltrate your skull), even if it is overall fairly light, generic stuff. Tim Fletcher's voice was skilled enough to carry it. But this show bloody bewildered me; apparently they've pushed Dave Hamelin up into a second lead vocal/guitarist position (if I've got the names of who did what on the first CD straight), and here's the catch: HE CAN'T SING! Started off the first four or five of his songs in the set painfully, painfully flat; it got better over the course of each song, but then started at ground zero again in the next one. What happened to this band that they're letting him sing? What happened to him that he sings like that? It was so bad we left after six or seven songs.