The Shins: live

I saw the Shins a couple of years ago, after Wincing the Night Away came out.  I was and am an enormous Shins fan.  I got into them before the whole "Garden State" thing, but ironically, that was the movie that made me fall in love with "New Slang" - before then it was their second album I adored, and especially "So Says I" which remains one of my favorite songs.

So I took some friends to the concert.  They ranged from Shins fans to total newcomers.  The opening band got caught in bad weather, so it was an interesting experience - could they rise to the challenge, and deliver a killer set?

Unfortunately, they didn't give a set that converted anyone not already sold that night.  One of the reasons is that James Mercer, though a talented songwriter, is not a tremendously compelling frontman.   He said little between songs, and in fact most of the chatter to the audience was from the guitarist and bass player (who switched instruments a number of times during the show).  At one point, someone was tuning up, and there was a pause between songs, and the two of them started goofing around, and ended up playing the first verse of "Holy Diver."  This is not a song that lends itself well to the kind of crowd that the Shins attract.  There were a couple of weird audience-interaction moments like that, that night.

But by and large, the biggest problem seemed to be the fact that Mercer was uncomfortable with the Shins being the Shins.  He'd given interviews about how all anyone associated with them was "New Slang" and how he wished people would see the band for more than one song.  So when they played "New Slang" that night, they played it up tempo, and the harmonies were a little ragged, and a number of small things that in themselves aren't important, but all contributed to a sense of trying to pull the song off of it's pedestal, a little.

What it all comes down to, I think, is this: there are Rock bands, and there are Pop bands, and that concert was the Shins, who on record are a terrific Indie pop band, trying to be a rock band.

Simon and Garfunkel were a Pop band; so were the Beach Boys, and Oasis.  The Who, the Rolling Stones, and Cheap Trick were all Rock bands.  Bob Dylan is Rock.  Billy Joel is pop.  Etc.  There's nothing wrong with being a pop band, but there is a difference.  So the Shins played their songs harder, looser, and louder than they recorded them.  Some of the songs benefitted: "Caring is Creepy" and "So Says I" came alive under this treatment, so it wasn't an entirely misguided move.  But as a whole, it seemed artificial, and put on. 

It was this artificiality, or uncomfortableness, that meant that it was a concert for the faithful only, I think.