Concert Review:  The Strokes, The Aragon Ballroom, April 23

The Strokes may have been tagged as part of the garage rock revival, but the Strokes are definitely not a garage band. For one thing, their most obvious influences are from the wrong era, but mainly because great garage bands have front men teetering on the brink of sanity, but the Strokes are entirely sane. Yes, they have great songs and they give a really tight live performance, they are stylishly dressed and cool, but these are not the elements that create an enthralling concert. I was glad that health problems demanded that I take a seat without a decent view of the stage at their show rather than, say, the Mooney Suzuki, because I wasn't missing much by not being able to see them.

Which isn't to say they were bad. The set had a great pace, they played a credible cover of the Clash's "Clampdown" and they didn't milk their presence with an encore. They just weren't stellar.