Peter, Bjorn, John, Rabbits And Ruffians

Yes, we do leave home. Jaded Insider popped out last night to New York's Bowery Ballroom to weigh in on some bands that blogs seem to be weighing in on. NYC band White Rabbits scored a coveted opening slot for headliners Peter, Bjorn and John the past few nights, and it's a shame that more people didn't show up for their set. They have a guy playing drums who sorta looked like Chris Elliott and a guy singing who sorta looked like Brandon Flowers' little brother. At least to us. They sounded like a hybrid of the Walkmen, the Stills and, when they brought out their sax player, Morphine. All of these are good things, and their piano-heavy, bluesy numbers were the best. Say Hey Records seems to have picked them up.

As people started filling up the club, slightly blog-buzzed band the Born Ruffians took the stage. They made us feel old because they didn't look a day over the ripe age of 16. And we, along with the rest of the crowd, were bored to death by this Toronto three piece. J.I. suggests they work on stage presence, songwriting and getting older. They played watered down Strokes-sounding songs, which made us try and think of names to call them. The best we came up with was "The Faux-kes." Hey, it was a long day.

So on to the Swedes everyone was here to see. P, B & J (as some fans shouted) have a mod thing going on; they look dapper, and the lead singer resembles Jimmy Fallon. Their shows are as energetic as they can be, for summer-time-happy Swede pop. Today, blogs like Brooklyn Vegan have been on fire about how mediocre this band was the past few nights. We here saw this coming; their album, "Writer's Block," gets a domestic release next week, and on the whole it is fine, despite garnering over the top positive reviews. It's average-sounding pop songs that are neither bad, nor amazing, and P,B & J played those average-sounding pops songs, averagely.