I walked into this show fully intending to give Aiden a fair shot at winning me over. Needless to say, lesson learned. Trite pandering to the MySpace demographic will never have legitimacy and will almost inevitably never have substantial musicianship, no matter how purposefully sloppy the band’s makeup applications are.

Luckily the night wasn’t an entire waste, as opening band Still Remains brought their cliché free brand of hard rock to the stage. Visually and aurally intense, the Michigan natives still maintained a sense of fun while performing, with frontman T.J. Miller never hesitating to climb the lighting rigs or jump into the crowd to thrash with the band’s fans.

More on the serious side, Drop Dead, Gorgeous were similarly uncontrived in their rocking while being more chaotically unpredictable. While there are plenty of similar bands, it’s the seamless integration of keyboardist Aaron Rothe that makes Drop Dead’s sound epic and frontman Danny Stillman’s spacey brooding that makes their stage presence unique.

Maybe Aiden should actually watch their openers to see how real rock bands do it.