Three Part Harmony Tour in discord

I've got to give Plain White T's credit. It's hard for a band who's built their career on being imitative to truly come up with an inventive concept for their tour, and they did. The hour and a half set was split up into "acts", called the Three Part Harmony Tour. They did their best to divide their catalogue into upbeat punky bits, restrained acoustic songs, and an only-God-knows-what second encore, but with so many interchangeable songs, they were really inconsistent.

In the second set, singer Tom Higgenson played harmonica horribly, and guitarist Dave Tirio donned an accordion for a whole 10 seconds. I hate to say it, but the two songs that stood out were their one annoying radio hit about the girl in New York who looks so pretty ("Hey There, Delilah"), and that other cheesy track about the three words lovers say to one another ("1, 2, 3, 4").

Couples embraced each other, had their moments, and the band sounded great. Even I, with my black heart and no expectations, felt a little connected after their performance of "1, 2, 3, 4."

It's a little difficult to be dating someone who is on the complete opposite musical spectrum as you. When date night comes around, and one of you is buying tickets to the show of his or her choosing, the other person is left a little out in the cold. That other person was me, but I put on a smile and enjoyed the company at Antone's on April 7 for the Plain White T's, Cruiserweight, and Danger Radio show.

Austinite pop-punkers Cruiserweight opened with a short, yet energetic set. Five or six years ago, I saw them a few times at the now-closed Backroom, and they sounded and performed exactly how I remembered them.

The band's chemistry with each other is evident, as the four-piece is comprised of three siblings.

Singer Stella Maxwell, the youngest of the three siblings, has a little bit of an ego, but it's endearing. She challenged the mostly teenage-girl crowd to a dance-off by getting in the middle of the crowd with them, and upon returning to the microphone, proclaimed that she "won, like always." It was probably the most entertaining part of the night.

I haven't paid any attention to them since my junior year in high school, but I did recognize that they played one of their first singles, "Cautionary Tale."

Danger Radio made my ears hurt.

I asked a girl next to me what they sounded like and she described them as "electronic-dancey-punk," and I was intrigued. She then said that his voice "was divisive," which I didn't mind, since I tend to like that type of vocalist. They sounded promising. But then she said his voice was "also, kinda whiney", and I was lost soon after that.

Their opening electronic beats were pretty groovy, but when the actual music started it sounded atrocious.

Singer Andy Brookins has a voice that makes you want to kill yourself, he whined and screamed, and ran from side to side, trying to imitate the emo-punk stars he grew up watching (he lists Saves the Day, Finch, and Taking Back Sunday as his favorite bands).

Thankfully, the guys are all relatively young (ages 21 to 24), and hopefully they can grow out of this stage in their career and do something a little less derivative.

Despite their horrible cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic," I actually heard a hint of originality hidden somewhere in their noise.