Bert and Ernie. Tom and Jerry. Starsky and Hutch. Sometimes two opposites come together and create something special. When it comes to music, for sale we’ve see it happen frequently. Jagger and Richards. Morrissey and Marr. Simon and Garfunkel. Even Big Boi and Andre 3000.

We also see it happen with tour lineups. How often have you discovered not only a new band, viagra but also an entirely new genre of music based on an opener that didn’t quite seem to fit in with the rest of the bill? A glance at the show calendar of any local venue will reveal that this isn’t an uncommon phenomenon.

Lucero and Titus Andronicus seemed like a strange pairing – but I was hoping the two could create some Penn & Teller-esque magic of their own.

Titus Andronicus was the show’s only opener, playing a 45-minute set that was spectacular at times, and a bit puzzling at others. The Glen Rock, Jersey five-piece has played two very well attended Boston headlining shows this year. They may have oversaturated the market at this point, as there were only about 15-20 people in the crowd who seemed familiar with their material.

Throughout the set, front man Patrick Stickles fought to summon the energy and intensity that the songs called for from within, as he wasn’t receiving much from the largely indifferent audience. At one point, the band played three new songs in a row. While this didn’t help with crowd participation, the new tracks did sound promising. The highlight of the band’s set was “A More Perfect Union”, a 7-minute epic that allowed Stickles to show off some impressive guitar work.

Lucero was up next, and during the early part of their set I tried to put my finger on exactly how you would classify their sound, but they’re almost beyond classification.

Every time I had the Memphis-based act pegged as a country band, I started to hear some Social Distortion influences. Then, the horn section would kick in and lead me in a completely different direction. When they covered Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle” six songs in, I gave up on trying to label them. Lucero would go on to play 27 songs in total, and the near-sellout crowd ate it up.

While both bands put on very solid stand-alone performances, the Lucero/Titus Andronicus pairing didn’t quite provide the better than the sum of its parts experience I was hoping for.

Though the gig attracted two very different fan bases, neither seemed very interested in making any new musical discoveries.

You could say the pairing was more like oil and water than Cheech and Chong, and I could keep this theme going, but instead I’ll just say that both bands are worth checking out live if you haven’t already – maybe just not at the same time.