Take away her soapbox.

As Linda Laban wrote in yesterday's Globe, Be Your Own played a noisy, short set at the Mid East on Saturday night. But I'm going to take exception to the characterization of the band as "uber-focused," mostly because on Saturday night, Be Your Own Pet was anything but focused, and also because the four-piece managed to cover up all traces of its somewhat-considerable talent with, like... noise. Yeah, so Be Your Own Pet is young, and Jemina Pearl is pretty, and energetic. And yeah, there are even a few good pop-hooks here, and some solid song-writing. But there's also a lot of theatrics masquerading as performance art; and a lot of head-shaking and mosh-pit-baiting tremors for the sake of head-shaking and mosh-pit-baiting tremors. Looks, Karen O. rocks, and she's certainly an admirable role model for a young up-and-comer. But the Yeahs channel mood, emotion, and (!!!) socio-political commentary (!!!) through their tunes, while BYOP just channels played-it-before teen angst through the blown-out mouthpiece of a bullhorn. Someone take away the kid's soapbox, yo.

Better? The Black Lips' set. Raucous, tight, and then spilling-out-at-the-edges; fuzzed out, angry, and equal parts Clash and Black Keys. These guys rock.