Saw the Shins last night and they were great as ever. It’s crazy to see a band go from the Blackbird to the Crystal Ballroom in two years, but these dudes deserve it. They played a few new songs which sounded pretty bare but maybe interesting. I say maybe because these songs sounded like a couple of the more straight-up guitar rock songs off the last album (my least faves), and I’m hoping this is just because they haven’t had time to flesh them out with all the nice little boroque keyboard lines and wussy-wonderful vocal harmonies. If it’s not that, and these songs are actually supposed to sound stripped down and rocky, then I’d say they’re not so promising.

Personal highlight = the Shins covering Magnetic Fields “Strange Powers”. This is one of my fave Mag Fields songs ever, and seeing another one of my fave bands tipping the hat – let’s just say I was yelling to this guy next to me about how awesome it was for five minute before I realized he wasn’t who I thought he was and I was efusing all over a complete and total stranger. I was stoked.

Also rad: they had a giant projection screen up, on which Marty (the funny one) promised “Miss Congeniality 2″ would be playing, for those not interested in the music. It wasn’t, but they did screen this totally ridiculous video of the band frolicking with a teeming herd of Monarch butterflies, and another one featuring a totally over the top male figure-skating diva (see ugly cellphone pic). The skater’s twirls and shimmies fit almost-too-perfectly with the song, as if this video, which appeared sans explanation, was actually some kind of half-funny self-comment re: how totally pansy this music is. And god bless them for that. The more people who look like this I see lipping lyrics like this, the better this world will be. Amen.