Tuesdays with Mercer

Nothing like a spur-of-the-moment trip to see The Shins to get this week started right. You see, The Shins hail from here in Albuquerque, but they haven't come back to play in over four years. So after a string of European dates, I guess they figured, "What the heck, let's go back to Albuquerque and rock that town silly."

And rock it silly they did. They played in a small club called the El Rey, and tickets sold out QUICK. I was unable to procure any as I found out about the concert too late, but last night, my friend asked if I wanted to go downtown and try our luck at getting tickets. They had released 45 tickets that night, but were unable to get any of those. We ended up buying some from a scalper for a slight increase, but it would soon be well worth it, although in my rush to get out of the house I forgot my camera, so all I could do is take crappy phone pictures. Forgive me.

I won't bore you with the openers, but The Shins effing rocked. They sounded tight, loud, and overall just plain awesome. And they appeared to be happy to be back in town, constantly thanking us for coming out and telling fun little anecdotes, like James Mercer saying, "This is a song I wrote about four blocks from here," and then breaking into "New Slang." It changed my life. Glee.


They also played a very cool cover of "Breathe" by Pink Floyd, a rocked out version of "So Says I," and turned "Caring Is Creepy" into a slow ballad, which all sounded great. Overall, they played for close to 90 minutes with a great mix of all three of their albums. My one complaint is that there wasn't enough dancing. Oh sure, there was the emo kid head bob, but where was the jumping and flailing about? Meh, it just made me look that much cooler. Amazing concert, that's all I can say. Why aren't The Shins ruling the world with their poppy goodness right now? Oh well.

Next up is TV on the Radio back-to-back, along with a soon-to-be-drunk-and-mischief-filled weekend in Atlanta, washed down with a chaser of some great music, both live and blared through the speakers at the residence of one Austin Louis Ray. Have a great weekend, fooligans.