Taking Back Sunday gave the BJC a pretty solid Thursday last night.

The crowd was obviously there mostly to see TBS. In fact, a lot of the crowd didn't even show up until the headlining band took the stage.

The show opened up with Armor for Sleep taking the stage in total darkness. Though the band was at least as good as the two that took the stage after it, they were probably too somnolently generic to open for a pair of more hardcore bands. They were barely able to get the crowd to even sway a little bit.

The next band to hit the stage was Underoath. Now, while no entire genre of music can be called categorically bad, neither Christian music nor hardcore rock are known for featuring many great acts, and Underoath is hardly an exception. Somehow the band was even worse than the sum of its parts, playing music that was not cohesive or dynamic and at times, not even intelligible.

They were entertaining, though. Whether it was the band's keyboard player high-fiving the stage hands and dancing like someone who could barely stand or the lead singer making it obvious he didn't really know where he was (referring to the crowd as "Pennsylvania" several times, instead of "State College" or "Penn State" even once), I actually laughed out loud a few times. Also, I thought the drummer was a chick until he started singing.

The crowd definitely seemed to get into it, though, and the sporadic moshing was more lively than they even got for Taking Back Sunday. In fact, maybe it was a little too lively; if you're at a concert where there are kids there not even old enough to make their own MySpace pages, you're not that hardcore.

TBS came out to a pretty big roar, but there wasn't much movement throughout their set. I got the vibe that a lot of the audience thought they were too cool to dance (I even heard a few people say it). Honestly, though, if you're looking for scene points at a stadium show in Central Pennsylvania, you might want to keep looking.

That's not to say the crowd didn't enjoy them. Many of the fans sang along to a lot of the songs, especially the older ones. In fact, the only reaction the band got that was bigger than when they were playing "Cute Without the " 'E,' " their first single, was when Fred Mascherino and Adam Lazzara, the band's two vocalists, started talking about Wawa. But, outside of the banter between the two, the crowd was definitely most partial to the older songs.

Overall, Taking Back Sunday put on a pretty good show, already in midseason form on the tour's first stop. The band got a little screamy and maybe used too much distortion, but there were some excellent harmonies and Lazarra is quite the savvy frontman, showing off some dances and microphone moves reserved for the top echelon of pop punk and emo singers. For the encore, Lazarra came out solo and played an acoustic guitar/mouth harp number that served as an extremely cathartic way to end the show.

The show suffered, though, from the seating arrangement. Those on the floor had plenty of room to move around, which is what you do at this kind of show, but the rest of the crowd who were banished to the reserved seats had less to do; many of them remained seated throughout the show. Basically, the seating would have been more appropriate for an IMAX show than for a pop punk concert, and in spite of Taking Back Sunday's stage presence and fancy set decorations, they lacked the grandeur to really make it work for the fans not lucky enough to be down on the floor.

The best part of seeing a band like Taking Back Sunday (and lord knows there are tons of them) play live is the energy they bring. You don't just watch this kind of show; you sort of have to participate. For the fans stuck in the upper seats, this dynamic of the show was almost completely nullified, leaving nearly half the crowd without the opportunity to fully enjoy what TBS brings to the table. I don't want to fault a band for playing the biggest venue they can, but when you're as aggressive a band as Taking Back Sunday, playing a mostly seated venue is unfair to a lot of the fans.