The Stills (Popscene, 21 April 2006)

It is a known fact that individual feathers in the wings and tail of birds help those creatures control flight. But for those feathers, birds will be like the rest of us: unable to fly. The Stills' new album, Without Feathers, is just that. This is a band that flew and soared high back in 2004, getting critical acclaim for their debut album, Logic Will Break Your Heart, and even had a spot in that year's Coachella Festival. Now, the band that soared high just crash landed. And it's because of Without Feathers.

Everything that Logic is, Feathers isn't. Feathers is a weak album, that lacks the hooks, raw sound and nasty rock that Logic perfected. Instead, the Stills made an album that had way too many vocals from their secondary singer, lacked the rock that made them stand out and sounded as if Snow Patrol became even more of a bunch of pussies than what they currently are.

With that in mind, The Stills' live show at Popscene was an absolute disaster. I thought that this show will at least make me like the new album, but it actually reinforced my utter disgust for it. Their old songs didn't fare much better. One of my favourite songs, "Changers are No Good", sounded slow, off beat and weak. I didn't even bother staying for the rest of the set. Except for a small handful of people, nobody seemed to care about their set either.

My friend made a good point that bands who are on hiatus too long tend to be forgotten. Or as Heidi Klum says, "one day you're in, the next day, you're out." And this was the case with The Stills. Where this band sold out The Independent, Popscene wasn't even close to capacity as I thought it'd be. The line was non-existent and I regret getting there too early to see the Stills, let alone see that God awful opening band Raising the Fawn. Not to mention I was so pissed off at everything and everyone around me (two people excluded).

I really tried to have fun. I tried to appeal and appease, but it was not returned in kind. I'd rather would have sat on the couch and watch re-runs of The Real Wives of Orange County than go to this piece of shit gig and spend $10.

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