Cowboy Mouth at Starr Hill, 5/31

Originally my plan for last night was to go with my friend to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Richmond, because I like to go swing dancing with her and I thought a live big band, playing outdoors in the middle of the botanical gardens, would be a good place/excuse to do so. About a week beforehand, she discovered that Cowboy Mouth, who she'd been wanting to see for several years, were going to be playing in Charlottesville (our actual residence, as opposed to an hour away for Richmond), thus leaving us with a decision as to which to see. Since she really wanted to see Cowboy Mouth, but figured we'd have plenty of chances to go dancing, and since I'm lukewarm to BBVD and just suggested it as an excuse to dance, we chose Cowboy Mouth.We still had business to attend to in Richmond though, and got a little distracted at Short Pump Town Center (like you've never gotten distracted and stayed at the mall longer than you intended), so we completely missed the opening act. So much so, in fact, that I really don't have any idea who the opening act was. (Of course, a quick trip to CM's website says it was Eli Cook, who I don't know anything about either.)I suppose now's as good of a time as any to say that my experience prior to a few days ago with CM was nonexistent; I randomly picked one of their albums (It Means Escape) to download off of Ruckus, and I recognized one of the songs ("Here I Sit In Prison (Yippee-I-Yay)") from it.So anyway, this was also my first time at Starr Hill, which has a little club kind of thing (kind of like the 9:30 Club, for instance, only smaller) upstairs from a restaurant and cocktail lounge. The sound is really quite good, given that it's just a little stage in the corner.Anyway. On to the music.The music is, to my ears, somewhere between southern boogie rock and (the all-encompassing) college rock. There were enough tinges in it where I could hear similar sounds to other bands I enjoy like Carbon Leaf and Dispatch that I could see myself, given enough time, getting into Cowboy Mouth. Such as it was, my feeling on and off during the show was kind of like that during the decent opening act for the band you really want to see--pretty fun, pretty good music, good at building your energy level a little bit, but never quite making it to the level of totally letting go. Maybe I'm the only person who's like that though. :pMy biggest complaint though was just with the drummer/lead vocalist working a little too hard at the whole getting the crowd involved thing. A fair number of songs included him chanting "gimme rhythm" for a while until most of the crowd had their hands in the air clapping, and/or telling everybody to move in closer to the stage. Once or twice, when trying to build up a call and response with the audience, he drew it out far too long, expressing frustration that we weren't being loud enough and said "fine, if that's how you want it, that's how we'll do it," pretty much draining all of the energy out of the band's performance as well.I could make some comments here about how it's the band's job to bring out the energy of the crowd, and not by witholding music until you force it out of them, but I guess I'll just leave it as this apophasis. :-pSo, in short, would it have been more fun to go dancing? Hard to tell, probably about even. Was it worth the money? Maybe, although I've seen better shows with more bands for less. Did it make me want to drop out of school and be a musician? Yes, but that'd probably be true for all but the most disastrous shows. Will I get more Cowboy Mouth off of Ruckus to listen to? Probably. Will I go see them again if the chance arises? Maybe...