I'm just looking, I'm not buying

The hard, muscular Stereophonics showed up at the Bowery Ballroom last night. The stripped-down, hard-rocking band put on a spectacular performance last night. Instead of the "backed-by-female-soul-singers and with a half-time acoustic performance" band that played Webster Hall two years ago, last night was just about a guitar, a bass, drums, and loud rock.

I absolutely love Kelly Jones' lyrics. He always tells a great story through his songs - a rarity today. He did a little bit of VH1's Storytellers last night and explained the meaning of most of his songs, which are almost all about drinking in South Wales. "This one is about getting drunk," "this one is also about drinking," "this next song is about drinking and waking up next to an ugly girl." I love the fact that so many people knew the lyrics and were singing along (especially all the Brits in the house).

They opened with "Superman," and played the following from the new album, Language, Sex, Violence, Other? - "Brother," "Devil," "Rewind," "Pedalpusher," "Girl," and put the single "Dakota" (with pre-recorded parts) in the encore. The new album is really growing on me too. They also played a lot of songs from their previous albums, including "A Thousand Trees," "Check My Eyelids for Holes," "Too Many Sandwiches," "The Bartender and the Thief," "Vegas Two Times," and "Madame Helga."

Highlights for me were "Local Boy in a Photograph," "Just Looking," and the brilliant "Maybe Tomorrow" played solo on the electric guitar as the first song of the encore.

Oh, and don't show up at 10:15 on a Monday when there's only one opener. You'll get stuck in the back.