The Past and Pending

At times, it can be frustrating not leading what one would call a "professional" life, but it's just not how I operate. I don't think in such terms. Sure, I could likely make some more money on the side with my photography or my dogsitting experience if I approached it more professionally; however, I'd much prefer to retain a very light approach to such things and keep myself open to whatever may happen because of it.
Case in point, whenever I'm asked to house/dog-sit for people, I never give them a set price. I may tell them the average per day that most people pay me, or I may not tell them at all and leave it all up for them to decide -- sometimes that means cash payment, other times it means some sort of even trade: a nice dinner out, music/iTunes vouchers, etc. In terms of last night, it brought a ticket from Andy to one of the two sold-out Shins concerts at the Crystal Ballroom, in exchange for animal-sitting a few weeks ago.

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Last night, I met up with Andy (and a small group of his co-workers from the credit union) for dinner at Ringler's before heading upstairs to the sold-out Shins concert at the Crystal Ballroom. As usual, McMenamin's fare was less than impressive, but decent enough to not complain.

We finished dinner about 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, but somehow we managed to get settled in pretty close to the stage before the opening band came on. Seeing as how the place was beyond sold-out and doors had been open for nearly an hour, I was quite surprised at the location we stood.
The opening band, Delta Spirit, was decent enough to keep my attention throughout but nothing too new in the way of 'bar rock.' Though, I do have to acknowledge that their percussion was fucking incredible. If they spent more time developing that aspect of their sound, rather than on cliche 'plugged-in era' Bob Dylan rips, they might actually be something to take note of. As it stands, try and check 'em out if they're openers on a bill sometime, but don't worry if you miss them.
And, after the openers, the all-new Shins 2.0 took the stage.
One thing that always surprises me about seeing the Shins live is how loud they become in person. On their records, they take a bit of a psuedo-Twee approach to their sound -- with hushed layer on top of hushed layer adding a lot of dimension but no real depth. Even with Wincing the Night Away, they produced and mixed it to within an inch of its life but there's very little "oomph!" behind it all.
Somehow, they take the complete opposite approach to their live shows. And even more so with the new band members. Everything had a new sense of urgency and angst behind it that worked well to add a lot of volume to their sound (in more ways than one). They played completely new material, completely new arrangements of old favorites, old B-sides that they'd never played live before, a Beach Boys cover, a Neil Young cover, a snippet of a James Gang cover...everything you'd expect from the band, and even a little bit more.

These days, their tours have been few and far between, so if you get the chance, definitely check them out. James Mercer is writing some of the tightest, dreamy-est pop songs around.

And he's totally hot when bearded.