See what I did with the title of this post? Understand it? That’s how real music sites refer to concerts. They have their own very special codes and stuff. I think it’s pants. So listen up: I promise that I will never put you through that again.

Gotta love London. Discovered quite late that The Shins were playing Hammersmith last night and managed to rock just in time to pluck up a seat way back in the bleachers (standing was sold out). Glad I did. Then again, I seldom regret going to a show.

The Shins were propelled from relative obscurity by super-geek Zach Braff who used a few of their tracks in the soundtrack for his girlie-movie Garden State (Natalie Portman’s character, in fact, actually endorses the band at one point), introducing the outfit to an enormous global audience of not-quite-men, rank idiots and twenty-something teenyboppers. The reason I’m being so scathing is not so much because of the band itself (hell, I like them), but more because every two-brain-celled degenerate with a DVD player and a television suddenly seemed to “discover” indie cinema (and music) when they picked up a copy of Garden State and starting extolling its virtues to their stupider friends. People, let’s get one thing straight: Garden State was more of a wank for Zach Braff than it was a good movie. I’m not saying I hated it, but I am saying that it received (and continues to receive) way more credit than it deserves. In fact, if you list Garden State and Amelie within your top three movies of all time, email me your address so that I can come to your house and beat you to death with a sock filled with little rocks.

Enough about Garden State, but my point continues: bands like The Shins and Frou Frou have suddenly been shot into the mainstream thanks to the millions of morons who think they’re “being indie” by listening to them. Although this is definitely more of an indictment on the fans (who think that OST’s are gold). For godsake, stop letting self-absorbed douches like Zach Braff spoonfeed you!

Rant over, back to the concert.

I missed the opening act, Vampire Weekend, but with a name like that I wasn’t overly concerned. The band, under the very obvious lead of singer/guitarist/songwriter James Mercer, kicked off with the haunting “Sleeping Lessons” from new album Wincing The Night Away and played a good hour-and-a-half set built largely around the solid, crowd-pleasing songs off their second album, Chutes Too Narrow (my favourite). Their fairly extensive set list included such numbers as “New Slang” (and the Garden State massiv lose the plot), “Kissing The Lipless”, “Mine’s Not A High Horse”, “So Says I”, “Saint Simon” and “Gone For Good”. The first part of the show closed out with the much anticipated hit single “Phantom Limb” off Wincing, although the band returned for a relatively rousing encore, culminating with the bouncy “Caring Is Creepy” (off the first album…and, naturally, the fucking Garden State OST – spit).

Musically, the Shins are a tight live act, but sadly they lack stage presence. Seriously. They look like a geek troupe in a high school talent show. And they don’t really interact with the crowd (bar the bass player, who made a fool of himself by acting like a toddler), which is another negative. Furthermore, their repetoire isn’t exactly foot-stomping or moshworthy and from my seat up with the angels I couldn’t see much movement from the rabble down against the stage.

But let that not detract from the show. Mercer is a talented songsmith and his somewhat offbeat lyrics, whilst impossible to understand at times, are gold. The music was good (most importantly) and I reckon I’d go to see them again.

Here’s a shockingly bad video clip of “New Slang”. I’m posting it because you can still hear the song quite well…and because I’m too stubborn not to. Seriously, though. It looks like a Korean guy stole my Canon and then pirated the clip in a packed cinema using a closed circuit camera. Just listen to the music if the quality makes you want to eat your own tongue.