With two years since their last area shows and a new album to tour behind, Jimmy Eat World had nothing but good expectations to fulfill. Unfortunately, last night's show to a capacity crowd was uneven at best and flat at worst, with new songs failing to capture the imagination and many of the old songs lacking energy.

Kicking off their set with the anthemic "Big Casino," the first single from their most recent effort, Chase This Light, it quickly became obvious why the show wouldn't be very good. Jimmy Eat World crafts and produces fantastic records, but the dense layers that permeate many of their songs rarely translate live. The new songs they performed -- alongside "Big Casino," they hit "Let It Happen," "Always Be" and "Carry You" -- sounded empty, lacking the synths, keys and backing vocals they feature on the album. (Ironically, the new album is almost too heavy in such layers, sapping some of the songs of their energy.)

Photos by Kyle Gustafson.

Some of the band's older pop ballads, including "23" and "Kill," suffered the same fate, while some of the set's energetic mainstays ("A Praise Chorus," "Bleed American," "Pain") just didn't have the kick or appeal that their recordings do. It didn't much help that the mix sounded off and that the crowd's energy remained low throughout the set, spiking only during key singles ("Work") and during the encore, which included the band's two signature hits, "Sweetness" and "The Middle."

The show's highlights may have come through the other two songs in the encore. An adapted version of "Your House" demonstrated the band's talent in crafting songs that are catchy without being annoying, while a straight-forward rendition of "Hear You Me" exemplified the understated beauty of many of the band's songs -- especially the slower ones. And other criticisms aside, singer Jim Adkins still has one of the best voices in rock.

Maybe it was an off night, maybe they're just one of those bands that doesn't do as well live as they do on tape. Whatever the reason, it's too bad that a two-year wait wasn't met with a show as good as the audience could have wanted.