When I spoke to the lead singer of  Miniature Tigers last fall (for the full BestNewBands.com article please click here), I didn’t know a whole lot about the quartet. I was charmed by their tracks “Mansion of Misery” and “Bullfighter Jacket” (see video below) but I was further intrigued by how down to earth lead singer Charlie Brand was.

I immediately purchased their sophomore album Fortress, and it’s been in heavy rotation on my iPod since then: I couldn’t seem to get enough of the quirky blend of acoustic and electric creativity that sound like the result of a brainstorming session between Simon & Garfunkel and of Montreal. I was stoked to buy a ticket well in advance for their show last Saturday at The Satellite, and to prepare I began watching videos of their past performances online. Yet every clip I watched was spotty at best, including videos of them performing with The Roots at the Red Bull Soundclash last winter. I entered The Satellite with an equal mix of trepidation and excitement, hoping against hope that Miniature Tigers would bring the same life and energy to their live show that so charmed me on their record. But the sad fact of the matter is, their performance was mediocre at best and supbar at worst.

There are a lot of things that I could complain about Miniature Tigers‘ performance that would seem nitpick-y at best, so I’ll stick to the main points. It wasn’t just the fact that every song was played at about half the speed as it was on the record, or that the band members seemed less than excited to be playing the show. I could even get over the lack of color and life that their songs so brilliantly displayed on the record, as the arrangements and instrumentation would be hard to execute live (and with only four people to boot). But what I can’t get over is the fact that the lead singer was way out of tune for the majority of the performance, and the fact that these guys have been touring together for the last two years and they still sound like they just formed as a band a few months ago. Perhaps the cherry on the top of this mediocre pie is the fact that they shared a stage last year with The Roots, a band who is not only at the top of their game but at the top of their genre as well as being one of the most celebrated live acts of the last 20 years. And yet, Miniature Tigers seemed to take nothing away from an experience that many burgeoning musicians would not only kill for, but return to again and again as a learning model for live performance. I find it worth mentioning that I was not the only person in the crowd supressing yawns; even the notoriously stoic Los Angeles audience seemed less than impressed with their performance. So if Miniature Tigers can’t bother to present their fans with a spectacular live representation of their music, then why should we bother to listen?