The Focus Group is a San Diego indie rock band that has one EP and self titled album that just came out, including vocals from Pall Jenkins of Black Heart Procession and newly reformed 3 Mile Pilot.  It is too bad he was not there to help things out.  Right away the music was impressive, promising a good show to come, but as soon as the singing began I gave up that hope.  It was not bad singing, but it was not on the level of the music and bordered on talk/singing.  

The singer's humor was pleasant though, introducing the first song as being called "Line Check" where they check if their instruments are working.  After the second song he let us know this was the CD release show for their self titled CD, saying they were setting them free and had been holding them tight for some time.  He and the rest of the band were dressed fairly nice, one in a tie.  They made an effort to be presentable and be fun, but the music had not yet topped the instrumental introduction.

After the singer asked if anyone had attended Torrey Pines and received no reply, he said we were lucky and moved on to a song with lyrics that made me internally flinch.  "On a sinking ship I start a fire."  It was not a bad song, but the end had an unnecessarily lengthy instrumental finish that was not impressive enough to deserve being that long.   This was followed by a slower song that revealed how the back up singer could not be heard in his brief additions.  A lot of people were talking during the music.  

The second last song began out of no where with an accidental loud and piercing note that made me jump.  This song and the last one finally contained a couple short moments of unquestionable singing, but no more than that.  At one time where the singer did put effort in singing, he backed away from the microphone as if not wanting to really be heard.  It appears he has a better singer inside of himself, but is afraid to let him out.  Maybe someday he will come out of his shell and we will see greater things from this decent band.