If you are into female harmony folk-rock you are probably listening to The Staves right now. Their singing is about as good as it gets and being sisters they’ve had plenty of practise. After a few years of headline performances they are pitch perfect and expertly prepared: their performance on Saturday night at the Colston Hall was smooth, serene and lovely – it’s just a shame that it was also personality free.

I knew that there was a problem when sister Number One opened the show by calling out “Hello Bristol!!!” It was already obvious that before the end she was going to say that we had been an “Amazing Audience.”

A problem with many performers is not them, but who is listening in: many politicians suffer the same fate, but whilst Marx may have said “I am not a Marxist,” it’s harder when you’re selling tickets to be something your audience don’t want.

I suspect that The Staves would have preferred to have sung in a church hall; try as they might their street cred was rather too suburban and leafy, with nicely mown verges and neatly parked cars. They are delightful girls, but their audience holds them back: they do a song about snow and we just know that they shop in Waitrose and John Lewis: but why then did they ask Colston Hall to remove half the seating and opt for the rock concert setting? The audience are on a different stave – an octave apart, drinking beer, shouting out inappropriately and not quite sure what do in the quiet bits.

Earlier in the month I heard another female vocal group perform at the Colton Hall—The Roches, no longer available in the shops but still there on Spotify and Napster. If you like the musac of The Staves, try Mr. Sellack  by The Roches and hear how it should be done.