To be honest, I’m not too crazy about Stars’ new album, In the Bedroom After the War, or about how they stiffed me for an interview that would have been printed (and I would have been paid for) in Out & About, but, in all fairness, they put on a good show last Wednesday at the Trocadero. Considering that there is a still a residual buzzing in my ears from the Justice show last Sunday, the atmosphere at the Troc was understandably less electrified. My friends and I were able to slither through the audience to the front row without pulling a 1979 Who Concert in Cincinatti on anyone.

Stars opened with “Take Me to the Riot,” one of the more popular songs off of their new album. I was seeing stars when they played “The Ghost of Geneva Heights”…

… then I realized it was lead singer Torq’s NiteBrite jacket. Definitely an appropriate artistic statement, but I wouldn’t wear it in North Philly if I was lost. The batteries must have been low because he quickly discarded it and performed older favorites like “Love Elevator,” “Look Up” and “A Skull Full of Maggots.”

The band had an entertaining live presence largely due to Torq, who bounced around the stage and shared his mic with the other musicians, lest anyone forget that it was still a rock concert. When he wasn’t singing, he was playing melharmonica and trumpet parts, like in “One More Night,” which he introduced as a song “about _____ someone to death.” Fill in the blank. I was pleasantly surprised that Torq and Amy chatted with the crowd between songs instead of berating us for not cheering loud enough.

The concert “closed: with “Celebration Guns” before they re-emerged for an encore of “Calendar Girl” and “In Our Bedroom After the War.” They handed out the fake plastic flowers that had decorated the microphone stands and drum kit to the people in the front, who were mostly female, as a classy parting gesture. I did not receive one.