EDMONTON - Repetitive. Monotonous. Repetitive. Monotonous. Repetitive, repetitive. Monotonous, monotonous.

At the great risk of incurring the wrath of thousands of teen to 20-something girls, that was the story of the Dashboard Confessional concert at Rexall Place on Thursday night.

Dashboard Confessional is supposedly a band, now four albums deep into its career, but the only person that really matters is lead singer Chris Carraba. His mug is front and centre on the latest Dashboard album, Dusk and Summer.

And, hey, I'm a '90s kind of guy. No, wait - I'm a new millennium kind of guy (sorry kids, time becomes a blur for us old folks in their 30s) and Carraba has his obvious charms. He's good-looking and clean-cut, with cool tattoos on his arms where sleeves should be. That butch factor offsets his really, really sensitive side.

Carraba sings "emo," henceforth known as "wimp rock," a heartfelt genre made more execrable when performed acoustically. Really, Dashboard, along with opening act City & Colour (again, really just one guy), are sucking the musical marrow out of a bone from a steak that Coldplay ate and the Smiths and the Cure cooked.

At times, Carraba's voice actually sounds a lot like the Cure's Robert Smith - nasal, weepy. There's also an almost Maritime-like lilt to Carraba's delivery, like he's singing songs penned by a lovelorn sea captain. And the south Florida boy said he definitely feels a kinship with Canada.

"I'm making up for lost time. If I'd known the girls here are so pretty, I would have come a long time ago," Carraba said, eliciting teen screams, before launching into his latest album's title track, supposedly inspired by "taking a walk near a lake (somewhere) in Canada."

Shooting stars then flooded the stage's backdrop in what was easily the coolest effect of the night. Carraba was obviously walking near Shooting Star Lake up there in Canada, eh?

With lines like "You have stolen my heart," from Stolen, and "But all I want is not to need you now," from Turpentine Chaser, he sings about a range of emotions no real guy would ever likely confess to - at least no dude in high school, unless he's looking for a wedgie in gym class. If Carraba wasn't singing it, I'd say stop snivelling. Luckily, he's a rock star.

Having said all that, none of the concert's performances were bad, just cornerless, with every ponderous "she loves me not" ballad drifting seamlessly into the next.

I quite like City & Colour's radio hit, Save Your Scissors, for example, but the band's set was so flush with reverb and distortion that every song ultimately ended up sounding exactly the same.

On the upside, Dashboard Confessional's drummer was so damn good that he deserves to be in another band where his ability doesn't get watered down by schmaltz.

John Ralston, first on Thursday's bill, was also quite good. He's got a powerful voice and he appreciated that at least one fan knew him and requested a tune of his: Gone Gone Gone.

Two few blips on the EKG, however, in what was an otherwise dull show.