Concert Review: The Shins

Anytime that you mention The Shins, it seems most writers would insert a Garden State reference, but I think it’s time that we as a people stop breaking our collective neck to connect the two. Yes, the scene where Sam handed Andrew a pair of headphones blaring “New Slang” was evocative and shoved The Shins into the spotlight, but that was three years ago and has nothing to do with their Mar. 9 performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. It’s time to let go.

The arrival of the Shins was heralded by the opening riff from “Sleeping Lessons” echoing through the concert hall. Strings of lights resembling stars were displayed against an amoebic Rorschach test background. The band built towards the peak of the song when a curtain dropped, revealing a massively sized version of the Wincing the Night Away cover painting. The band worked through the first four songs off their latest album, if you count the false start of “Pam Berry” which turned into “Phantom Limb,” before moving on to older favorites off Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World like “Kissing the Lipless” and “New Slang.” The band’s performance was flawless; if the songs didn’t sound as top-notch as they are on the albums, they sounded even better. Likewise, the atmosphere of the Ryman perfectly complements the band’s sound, particularly their indie-pop harmonies. I missed them when they came to Cannery Ballroom in 2005, but the general consensus was that the band stepped up huge from its “underwhelming” performance two years ago.

But performance is only half of a great Ryman concert. The true showing of a great band is whether or not they can overcome being detached from the audience. Often, the band on stage stays in a dull bubble and refuses to interact with the crowd, especially if they’re restrained to reserved seating. The Shins, however, took time to banter with the crowd, including responding to a drunken Billy Madison reference and prefacing a song with “We’re going to play one from the good old days. The Shins’ good old days. Although they weren’t all that good. And they were only six years ago.”

An odd phenomenon happens when bands come to the Ryman Auditorium. The history of the venue is such a heavy weight to place on a group of musicians that they often try to compensate with a country cover or two. In the past, acts like Bright Eyes have gone as far as pulling local stars like Gillian Welch on stage to honor tradition. Of course, the Shins were no different. The band expanded their encore to include several covers, including one of the Webb Pierce country standard, “There Stands the Glass.”

After 21 songs from their three albums, the music started to run together and I was left wondering after the finale, “So Says I,” if they had played that song 40 minutes earlier. But, is it really a bad thing to hear the same Shins song over and over again? My iTunes play count says “No, never.”