Last night I saw the Shins play at the Filmore Auditorium here in Denver. Its a rad venue and the Shins played a really solid show. I was totally enamored with the Filmore. For its simplicity its rather beautiful. The gorgeous wood floors expanding across tons of open space and high ceilings paired with enormous chandaliers create a really dramatic effect. Em and I decided that it would be a killer place to host a roller skating birthday party. When we hit 30 you’ll be invited to our joint event, if you promise to bring your skates!
Both the openers were alright, but I may have liked them more if the sounds wasn’t so friggin hot. My ears felt like they were gonna burst. I don’t understand why openers can’t mix their sound better. I don’t really know anything about music or any of that, but I know that if I have to wear earplugs I resent the experience. I’m also perplexed about why openers wouldn’t pay special attention to their audio. They have a captive audience that in my case is totally open to experiencing new music that is more or less recommended by this band I like and have come to see. But if it sounds like crap there is no chance I’m going to enjoy what I hear and I’m certianly not going to go seek out their music after the fact.
The first opener featured a pregnant female lead singing some kind of 60’s inspired hippy pop. She said La La La a lot. It wasn’t bad, but it hurt my ears. I’m pretty sure they’re called the Grrranimals, which might be because she intends to raise baby wearing Grranimals children’s clothing. It actually momentarily crossed my mind that maybe the pregnancy was just a gimmick to go with their name, but that seems pretty unlikley in retrospect.
The second opener was called Viva Voce and opened their set with the repeated verse “We don’t fuck around”. The band was just two people. A long haired dude and a chick wailing on quitar who we later found out is the woman on the Shins new album. They were pretty cool, but I could have done without the intensely long jam sessions on guitar and the repeatative recorded baseline track.
All in all a really good night, but I’m paying for it now. Something about this really busy past couple weeks and normally being lazy that makes being awake today incredibly hard. I wouldn’t say I’m getting old, but I just don’t have the same resilience for partying as I used to.
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