Monday, May 9, 2005 | 8:12 a.m.
When the Orem, Utah, rockers played the Huntridge in January 2003, $12 tickets were selling for as much as $50 on eBay after the place sold out in a heartbeat.
This time, Friday's show at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel sold out so fast, the venue added a second show for Saturday, which promptly sold out, too.
I showed up hoping to gain some insight into the phenomenon. I mean, there must be more to this group than the fact that frontman Bert McCracken once dated Kelly Osbourne -- a relationship broadcast to the world on the MTV series, "The Osbournes."
If there is something special about the Used, I left The Joint still wondering what it might be. During an hourlong set, the band failed to distinguish itself from a horde of other tolerable, high-energy acts on the modern-rock scene today.
Though the quartet -- McCracken, guitarist Quinn Allman, bassist Jeph Howard and drummer Branden Steineckert -- advertises itself as "genre-less," what I heard on Friday could roughly be classified as "emo."
For those unfamiliar with the difficult-to-define term, emo falls somewhere between hardcore punk and poppy punk, earning its name from the emotional, confessional nature of its typical lyrics.
The term emo is often used derisively, but it has also been applied to plenty of good bands, from Weezer -- whose second disc, "Pinkerton," is considered one of the sub-genre's best works -- to indie rockers Cursive.
Together since 2000, the Used expanded its fanbase with 2002's self-titled debut album, then hit it big with the follow-up, last year's "In Love and Death," which reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200.
Though both CDs are relatively varied affairs, the band's show stressed its "screamo" side, opening with a series of heavy, metallic numbers and never fully lightening up.
Regardless, the crowd of around 2,050 ate it up. Teens and 20-somethings pumped their fists, jumped in place and attempted to match McCracken's blood-curdling renderings of such angstful choruses as "Take my hand / take my life / take take take take take take it away!"
Dressed in all black, the frontman spoke often between songs but said little of substance until late in the show, when he announced "Blue and Yellow" as a "song about friendship."
"If you don't have any friends, I'll be your (expletive) best friend in the (expletive) world," McCracken said, prompting one of the night's loudest cheers.
Uninspiring as the Used were, they sounded far better than opening act Letter Kills, a Los Angeles band that demonstrated no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
The group achieved a dubious trifecta: singer Matt Shelton was horribly off-key throughout the set, the music was a sludgy mess and the songs were positively tuneless.
Coming on after that dreariness, the Used deserved medals for their performance by comparison.
Even so, they would be better off leaving Letter Kills off the bill in future, and figuring out a way to justify their massive popularity on their own merit.
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