Viva Voce opened this show - the gal in the band would appear later onstage with the Shins, but in the meantime, this loud, boisterous duo from Portland was here to mildly ammend the White Stripes 2-person band configuration, this time with the boy on the drums and the girl on various guitars. This strikes me as a very cost-effective way of touring. The band boasted viciously loud basslines - honestly, my face is shaking. My nose is itchy from the vibrations. I fucking love this! It's loud and crunchy, not unlike the drive you might find with the Secret Machines. Partway through the set, the drummer stops and comments on people in the crowd wearing new Shins shirts. "That's awesome," he said in a sincere tone. "You changed right here just to show 'em how much you love 'em. Why not me?" Then the gal whipped out the humoungous Danelectro doubleneck and carried on with those evil sounds. Sometimes, there were no drums. Just acoustic guitars. Both sang. It was hard and rad. The set-ending "We don't fuck around!" thing was .. yeah... said with CONVICTION, man!









I must also point out this show harboured the longest and most impressive line-up of hopeful ticket-buyers I have ever seen. Astronomical! It was dismal though, for even the scalpers seemed to not have any tickets. Good thing you can listen to the bands at street level outside the Commodore if you can drown out all the street noise. The audience inside was weird. Young-looking very-normal college kids eagerly at the front, hipsters milling around at the back. On stage now were more sparkly drums, awaiting the Shins. It's been a shimmery week for drums. You can tell the hold these guys have on people by little gestures, like the fact that members of the audience had small bouquets of flowers to toss at the stage, and the shrieks let out by excited first-row patrons as the set lists were taped down by the microphones. Amazing growth.









The stage itself was understatedly pretty. I didn't even notice through the openers that there were tiny round lightbulbs on the ends of black cords hanging all over the stage area. As The Shins set warmed up with an extended intro to 'Sleeping Lessons,' these bulbs glowed and twinkled dimly. With the deep blue light filtered across the silent band members as well, it felt like being in a twilighty camping trip. Stars? Fireflies? Campfire glow? And the encroaching nighttime. How peaceful. The set unsurprisingly concentrated on a lot of the material from their new album, "Wincing The Night Away." The first three songs mirrored the album exactly, bouncing a little medley action into track 4. After this, they took a small banter break to happily thank the audience and exclaim that they made it through the border this time, even with all their bombs and guns.









Seriously though, the sound here - fantastic. I wasn't fortunate enough to get out to the earlier Shins show a couple years back myself, though our writer Ryan Ince did. All I had to go on was the drifty sound from Sasquatch, and I was half-dead by the time they played anyhow. But this was marvelous! Such gutwrenching harmonies. And the La-la-las on "Saint Simon" were totally standouts. Rich, effortless vocals rippling over one another. Such a lovely way to celebrate. Yeah that's right. These guys are bouncy too, really in the swing of things. Reverbs pounds on the guitars. In the audience, some happy fellow lifted a crutch in the air and started waving it along to the music. The band asks who was here last time before pointing out people in the front row and saying, "I recognize you... and you...". And with a bit of Modern Lovers covered in the encore, we were sent off into the good night...









Photo gallery time...

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : February, 2007.