First off, good job to Pinback for only having one opener. Even though there was nothing particularly special about the one they chose to tour with, that made it especially nice that I only had to wait through it once. Scottish pop rockers Frightened Rabbit opened, with quaint, unremarkable songs that were no chore to listen to, but there really wasn’t much going on in them. They were upbeat, melodic tunes that had a hint of traditional Scottish folk mixed with modern indie rock, pleasant enough to pass the time without getting annoying.

I listened through Pinback’s new album Autumn of the Seraphs before the show to re-acquaint myself with the material and once again I came to the conclusion that it is at best a mediocre release. There are some decent songs, but for the most part it lacks the luster of their previous albums. All the parts that make up a Pinback album are there, but this time through they often seem bland and uninspired. They opened with two songs off the new album, and continued to play most of it throughout the set. The good songs on the album were good live, like “Torch” and “From Nothing to Nowhere.” The mediocre songs stayed mediocre in the live setting.

The real unfortunate part of Pinback’s performance was their insistence to play older songs much faster than on the recordings, making them sound jumbled and losing most of their impact. “Syracuse,” “Fortress,” “Penelope,” and “Tripoli” were all sped up, with singer Zach Smith missing almost all of his chorus harmonies on “Tripoli.” Playing the songs faster than on the record didn’t ruin them for the most part (most of the time I like it better when artists speed up their songs live), but the tempo and rhythm of these songs are so distinct and perfect on the recordings that playing them faster just made them messy, not energetic. Other songs sounded amazing, particularly “Boo” off of Blue Screen Life, and the closer “AFK.”

No one else in the almost sold out audience seemed to share my gripes, as they screamed for the band as loud as any audience I’ve been a part of in a while. Everyone seemed to have a great time. There were three couples in front of me that had exactly the same idea: “Hey honey, let’s go to the Pinback show and make out the whole time.” They looked like they were having fun. Demanding an encore, the floor was stomped with a ferocity matching an arena show, an output of energy I wouldn’t have expected from a Pinback crowd. As they are a band that’s written a lot of great songs I was glad to see them get that kind of attention - even if I don’t think they particularly deserved it for that performance.