Sticking with nice-guy rock, Matchbox barely ignites

Matchbox Twenty/Alanis Morissette

By Darryl Morden

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Every era seems to have hit-making bands skilled enough with pop-rock hooks and structure to score plenty of radio hits yet have no impact beyond that. Think Huey Lewis and the News in the 1980s. And Matchbox Twenty today.

Nice guys. Nice songs. No edge. No urgency. Sunday's performance at Staples Center was pleasant enough, but in attempting to sustain a two-hour show -- even with its various hits -- the group came off as bland, not bold.

The band's current greatest-hits-plus-new-tracks album, "Exile on Mainstream," is a shameless title play on the Rolling Stones' real classic, "Exile on Main Street" -- and sorry, but unlike Mick, Keith and company, these guys aren't likely ever to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But to its credit, the group has been around now since the mid-'90s, and even before singer Rob Thomas hooked up with Santana and dabbled in the solo world, the band had amassed an ample catalog of hits. Those numbers, such as "3 a.m." and a nicely rearranged, gentle version of "If You're Gone," were among the many crowd-pleasers for the fans filling the arena, most of whom were in their 30s and 40s. Thomas didn't overplay the rock star thing, either; in fact, he came off more as a regular guy fronting his pals.

Themes of romantic fear and emotional sickness surfaced again and again, but there was little depth, just a lot of diary hurt. The band made up for it with bittersweet melodies and mostly compact playing without excess, including short-burst, standard-issue guitar solos and bits of lyrical piano. There was even some energetic bar-band rocking on such new songs as the opening "How Far We've Come" and the Motown beat-pushed "I'll Believe You When."

The problem is that while the group understands the trappings, it still generally comes off as disconnected from any sense of rock history, even when it played a Beatles-by-way-of-Joe Cocker version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window."

Before the new song "These Hard Times," Thomas asked the audience to pull out their cell phones, BlackBerrys and such to hold them high and wave them. He should know better; the audience does that on their own, moved to do so or not at all. You don't ask. And the song, whose title could've opened the door to political commentary, turned out to be just a washed-out, vague midtempo ballad.