The joy and sadness of a Saturday night show. Saturday night really is a great time to get totally loaded and go to a show -- apparently any show -- judging by the crowd at the 9:30 club. Sure there were people singing along and doing the appropriate hand actions, but for every one of them there appeared to be two drunken, backward-cap wearing Frat boys and their permy haired paramours, shouting to each other throughout the songs. Not that this would normally bother me, but my friends and I drank at home till the last possible minute before leaving for the show. So instead of ending up in the front and center away from the annoying people we ended up halfway back and to the side, right in the middle of them.

We missed Jonathan Rice, and only got to hear the last three songs from what looks like a superb DJ list. But that is enough whining about the crowd, though it did spoil the atmosphere. I know, I know, let it go.......Ok, focus on the music — but it's so hard when someone a foot away is shouting.

What is worse is that I am totally unconvinced by Starsailor's current album.  Sure, its title song, "Silence is Easy" (one of two tracks on the album produced by Phil Spector) is the bands highest point, but much of the rest of the album is bland or bad, "Four to the Floor" is always worth singling out for derision, it is funky, goes nowhere and has crap lyrics.

So the DJ stops as an entry track (a recorded Starsailor track) is played over the PA. How lame is that? At the start of the show I want the theme from Rocky. But when the band starts playing all is forgiven if not forgotten. James Walsh, the singer, has such a great voice; Tim Buckley-esque so they say, not that I would know. The second song was a somewhat thrown away "Alcoholic". Now this song is either pure genius or totally cringeworthy depending on what you think of the line, "I always said you had your daddies eyes, daddy was an alcoholic." I cannot remember the rest of the setlist, but I remember them mixing songs from their two albums to pleasing effect.

Around half-way through the main set we got two covers. Now you can tell a lot about a band by their choice of cover, Frank Black and the Beach Boys, hang on to your ego, Morrissey and The Jam's "That's Entertainment" get the thumbs up from me. But U2's "All I Want is You" and Springsteen's "Thunder Road" are just karaoke material. What were they thinking?  Trying too hard to please the audience is my guess, but this crowd wasn't worth pleasing.

The highlight of the show was the last song of the set, "Silence is Easy", just sounded so perfect. The fancy L.E.D. lights and lasers all worked in time and concert nirvana was attained.

After about a five minute encore break, the band come back for three songs. And these were all great. The last song, "Good Souls", seemed much harder and louder than the album version. For a song this good I could forgive them almost anything, almost. Because, instead of it being the last song and a great finish we get James doing a solo cover of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name"; arggggggghhhh. Still, as Matt ( Bigyawn.net writer ) pointed out, "This band is totally radio ready, with some exposure they could be as big as Coldplay." Judging from the best of their songs I am prone to agree.