So: New Pornographers/Belle & Sebastian. I was ready to reaffirm my love for the band, but tonight's effort doesn't really merit it. I've seen them three times now — once at the Black Cat, once at 9:30 back in October, and then again at 9:30 tonight. They've never managed to wow me with their live act, but in the past I've been pretty happy with the show. Not tonight — this was by far the weakest of the three outings.

Neko Case is off touring behind her latest solo album, so the set was doomed to mediocrity from the start. Topping that off, the lone remaining female vocalist, Kathryn Calder, had laryngitis. That effectively cuts out a third or more of the band's material. Not a good start.

Throw in too-long transitions between songs, an oddly anemic sound mix and an apathetic start and you end up with a pretty poor set. There were some bright spots: Newman's singing was mostly strong and he exuded less contempt for the audience this go-round. More importantly, the band actually switched up the arrangements in some minor ways — something I've been complaining about since the first time I saw them. But overall it was not a good show.

Belle & Sebastian! I have to admit: B&S are not really my thing. I'm not that familiar with their stuff, having only been exposed to them via Catherine's occasional efforts to get me to listen to them at the start of our relationship. That, and listening to the Avalanches remix of I'm a Cuckoo about a million times. But everything I know and that I think I need to know about the band is summed up in the following two paraphrased statements, both of which were made tonight by frontman Stuart Murdoch:

• "When I was growing up I used to go to some discos where people would bring their knitting and just do it at the show."
• "We've got the spirit of Fugazi."

See what I mean? They seem like they mean well, but some sort of serious misunderstanding must have happened somewhere along the way. At one point Stuart said he didn't know what a song was about and an audience member helpfully yelled, "It's about modern rock!" But no, it pretty clearly isn't. Rock music is about catharsis, whether it's melodic or lyrical — that's what it's about for me, anyway. B&S's stuff doesn't have that payoff. It's not that I'm opposed to tweeness — I like the Decemberists, after all. It's that B&S songs don't establish tension, so there's never any resolution. They write ditties, not rock songs.

But as I mentioned, I'm speaking from a position of ignorance. A live show is no place to learn a band's lyrics, so perhaps that's where I would locate the depth that I perceive to be missing. From what I could make out they seem to have a lot of songs about lesbians. That seems like a decent start.

Another reason I'm probably wrong about the band: the crowd was way into them. Not dancing into-them — don't be silly! — but certainly enthusiastic and loud. Maybe a little too loud: they were prone to yelling out requests, a bad habit that the NP encouraged early on (they used the same tactic last time I saw them, wherein Carl asks for requests until someone yells the next song on the setlist).

But the band bore the idiots well, playing to the audience in clever ways but without becoming tiresome. Despite their best efforts, the music stubbornly refused to trigger my brain's rocking out nucleus, and I was pretty deathly bored by the end of their set.

Still, even a B&S skeptic like myself has to admit that they're a great live band. They're good instrumentalists and vocalists; Stuart's stage banter was endearing; and they played a nice, long set. Their material is fundamentally unexciting to me — but if I were a fan, I'd be very happy fan right now.

NPR recorded the whole thing. I mostly think this is great because it meant that the bands started their sets on time. But I guess it also means that you can listen to the whole concert here.