Concert Mon Feb 12 2007

Concert Review: The Shins, Viva Voce @ Congress Theater, 2/10

By Brandon Forbes

Saturday night was the kind of cold that shook you to the very bone. Good thing The Shins brought the perfect thaw: an hour of burning pop brilliance. Standing in the massive line that snaked outside the Congress waiting to get into the sold out venue, I kept hoping the hype I had heard about this tour was for real. The usual live reviews of The Shins I had read were all about how subdued, boring, and similar to their recordings their sets often were. But a few new blurbs promised an expanded Shins line-up for the Wincing the Night Away tour as well as an improved dynamic sound that was bigger than anything they had done before. By the time I got through the packed lobby and past the absurdly priced beers, I was ready to see if James Mercer & company could live up to my expectations.

But another band from Portland made The Shins payoff wait.

Kevin and Anita Robinson (the former of whom I had the pleasure of interviewing last month here), who play under the moniker Viva Voce, produced an epic rock sound that, surprising for a two-piece, filled up the spacious ceiling of the Congress. To the delight of the audience, Anita burned a few solos into the brains of The Shins faithful while Kevin angrily pounded his kit. While they played a few of their daintier indie hits, closer "We Do Not Fuck Around" off of last year's under-played Get Yr Blood Sucked Out seemed the strongest, with Kevin moving easily from keyboard to drum kit and Anita taking the double-necked guitar to town to end their set.

After an extended break, the lights went down and the familiar synth-line of Wincing the Night Away opener "Sleeping Lessons" rolled out over the crowd as The Shins took the stage. With dramatic import, Mercer sung the opening verse coyly from a darkened stage until the song exploded with rock abandon, a dynamic highlighted by the huge curtain which fell behind the band to reveal a massive background displaying the Wincing cover art. Sure, it was a hokey rock stunt. But man it rocked - and this proves it. The Shins played the first four tracks off of Wincing straight, turning in a giddy rendition of "Phantom Limb." From this new record plug, Mercer turned the band to several tracks from Oh Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow, with "Kissing the Lipless" getting the best audience sing-a-long response and "Saint Simon" dazzling with spot-on three-part harmonies from Mercer, guitarist Dave Hernandez, and bassist Marty Crandall. Postmodern anthem "New Slang" and introspective Wincing closer "A Comet Appears" suffered from being too quiet for the Congress and the latter featured an awkward opening as Mercer's mic did not come on until halfway through the first verse. Their stage banter was also pretty weak (at one point Crandall claimed that he could cut people with his pocketknife "like Wolverine") and overall the long pauses for tuning and talking in between songs made the crowd a bit restless. The encore more than made up for the band's onstage quirks, though, as high energy closer "So Says I" brought the house down, as captured briefly here. While not amazing, Saturday night's performance was close, offering a solid musical performance evidenced by a group finally transferrring the brilliance found in their recordings to their live show.