Live Review: The Stills @ Bowery Ballroom [03.08.08]

In almost three years of New York City concert-going, I have never seen a venue worker alter the stage lights between bands. Yet somehow The Stills accomplish this feat, floodlights moved not by some random yahoo, either, but by the middle-aged, beer-bellied man who guards the entrance to what passes for backstage at the Bowery. As the Montreal band and its roadie set up the stage, the "guard" — earplugs still firmly in place — uses a 10-foot pole to move the lights above the stage into their proper position.

As he works, the buzz in the room, killed by openers Wild Light's dull set, builds. The Stills have come from the Great White North to conquer New York. They've already broken the take-no-shit, close-enough-to-a-bouncer veteran of hundreds of shows. The only obstacle left are some indie kids, waiting and willing to be transported. We are ready to explode with arms-crossed, head-nodding fury.

As the band takes the stage, the reason for the overhead light shift becomes clear. Eight brilliantly florescent vertical bulbs light up behind them, throwing guitar and bass and black clothes and unkempt hair into a silhouetted rock band tableau.

This should be epic.

It's not.

For the next hour, The Stills are fine. Solid, tight, and occasionally alluring, most notably on "Lola Stars and Stripes" and "Still in Love Song," the two jams that, judging by crowd reaction, introduced 75 percent of the audience to the band. The show's enjoyable, but never transcendent. Interpol threw out these black uniforms two years ago. The florescent backdrop works, then grows tired and morphs into a gimmick The Stills purchased at The Strokes' stoop sale last month on Second and A.

Canada's finest are never light-alteringly good. The songs aren't quite there, and neither is the live show. They are a good band, with an excellent first album and a weaker second one. If the two songs they play off their upcoming third album are any indication (one called "Eastern Europe," another about tea), they'll try to recapture the magic of "Logic," get close, but ultimately fall short.

Just as the show does.

By about 10 feet.