I have to say this night was one I was looking forward to most of the week. It was the night I would FINALLY get to see a full performance by the seminal local post-rock group The Rogers along with slow and methodic noise makers Actors and Actresses from Kansas City at The Rendezvous on Saturday.

But before the show, curiousity got the best of me.

I've known that St. Joe had it's own symphony orchestra. Heck, I've done an article or two on them. However, I never did manage to catch any of their previous performances.

I decided to make a trip to the Missouri Theater, where the Saint Joseph Symphony was holding their annual Yuletide Pops concert to a nearly-packed house. I didn't get to check out the show in its entirety, but I stayed long enough to grab a couple of sugar cookies (they were FREE) and see a handful of songs.

The highlights of what I saw was the "Overture to a Merry Christmas" which incorporated Mozart with Christmas classics in surprising ways and while there three movements from the "The Nutcracker" featured familiar melodies, it was the lesser known third section, featuring a slow, wrenching melody from the strings, that gave me chills.

I have to admit, the symphony's decision to do "Baby, It's Cold Outside" may have been ill-advised as the voices and orchestra style didn't quite mesh. But St. Joe should be thankful to have such a well-trained symphony to give lovers of classical music an option so close.

Shortly after I left, The Rogers prepared to play an opening slot for Actors and Actresses.

To preface this, I should say that when I first moved to St. Joe and wanted to hear about who the really good bands were in town, The Rogers was the first band that was uttered. I even remember a conversation with Todd Long from local group The Waystation saying how for a short period of time, The Rogers "changed his life." All of this leads to some lofty expectation, and thankfully, they were all met.

From the opening notes, I got to see why The Rogers were "kind of a big deal" at one point. There popularity may have waned compared to previous years, but the elements that have made them original hasn't. Front man Marc Darnell is as eccentric as David Byrne with a punk rocker's intensity, driving the band with rhythmically and melodically sporadic tension-and-release riffs. Meanwhile, Kiley Bodenhamer lays back with his unobtrusive bass to thicken the effect of Jeff Jensen's finesse-and-thunder while Jimmy Myers spacious, textural hum and atmospherics added some ceiling room to The Rendezvous' tight confines.

Following The Rogers was Actors and Actresses, a group that sounded phenomenal based on their MySpace recordings. Unfortunately, while they were able to replicate most of the slow burn of their recorded material, live they were lacking.

Compared to the mostly driving rhythms of The Rogers, A&A were slow the the point of inertia. The epitomy of shoegaze, Scott Bennett's thick low-end bass and indecipherable lyrics combined with Dave Sumner's undynamic, bare bones drumming to showcase the effect-laden guitar of Andy Schiller, who was stomping on his various effects pedals more than a kid in an arcade playing "Dance Dance Revolution." There Sigur Ros-meets-Mogwai sound would be perfect for a reflective solo drive or to veg-out on the couch for existential contemplation. Just live, it wasn't anything to see.

The band that needed to be seen live went on first.