– The Shins – in concert at the Firefly Music Festival – Dover, Maryland – June 18, 2017 – Band Soundboard –
The Shins, in concert at the Firefly Music Festival in Dover Maryland for a Friday morning. The Shins have been around since 1996, went on hiatus, changed directions, changed personnel (James Mercer is the only remaining original member) looked back, looked forward and have kept a consistent eye on pop traditions. Having been cited as a definitive link between the era of The Zombies and The Beach Boys and present day music making, they are known for their distinctive style and rich word imagery, one which has served them well in all this time.
This concert is part of a tour the band embarked on in March 2017, to coincide with the release of their fifth album, Heartworms. They did a full-U.S. tour, including an appearance at Lollapalooza in Chicago before heading over to Europe to dive into Festival mania over there, with appearances at Way Out West, Rock en Seine, The Green Man Festival, Pukkelpop and The Lowlands Festival, before heading back to the States in September to finish off the tour criss-crossing the U.S. with shows in Berkeley, Phoenix and New Orleans before ending up in Mexico City.
Billed as a “small tour”, one wonders what a “big tour” would look like, but there were plenty of opportunities to catch them and a lot did, cementing a fanbase that continues twenty-six years on.
Mercer described the Shins as a “pop project” from the beginning. The group were inspired by any and all music that they discovered. “Everything we listen to […] makes its way in somehow, but we’ve been inspired by a bunch of bands who basically just keep reinventing the same thing”, said Mercer. The group received comparisons to the “pop revivalists” at the Elephant 6 Recording Collective early in their career, such as The Apples in Stereo, whilst Mercer’s vivid, often surrealist lyrics and infectious melodies drew comparisons to the songwriting style of Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices. Rolling Stone credited the band with bringing “the pop traditions of 1960s pop bands—groups like the Zombies, and the Beach Boys—to a new generation of music fans.”
Crank this one up and take the weekend off – you earned it. Really. Honest. I can tell.
