The Shins - First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, 11-14-2003

I'm sure I have a bias against music from the 2000s, because it isn't the music I grew up with. So maybe it's just my bias, but a lot of the songwriting from recent decades doesn't appeal to me as much as those from the 1960s through 1990s. There are exceptions though, and the Shins are one of them. The band's first two albums, "Oh, Inverted World" in 2001, and "Chutes Too Narrow" in 2003, are particularly good. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic,com, those two get very high ratings, and each succeeding album gets lower numbers.

Given all that, it's particularly nice to have a Shins bootleg concert recording from 2003, after those two albums were released, which is exactly what this is. The band has only put out one official live album, "Live at Third Man Records," in 2013. But that's a flawed record. For one thing, it's short for a live album, less than 40 minutes long. And for another, it doesn't include many of the band's greatest songs, such as "New Slang," which is an undisputed classic, in my opinion.

This is much better. It includes all the best songs from the first two albums, and the sound quality is excellent. Since the band isn't that popular, bootlegs are few and far between. So it's very fortunate that this is a soundboard boot, with no sound issues. The band's drummer was sick during the concert, which is something that got talked about some between songs, but the band soldiered on and put on a good show despite that.

There was only one minor snag: the last song, "Know Your Onion," was cut off before it ended. Not much was missed, less than ten seconds, but still, that's not good. So I found a version the band did live for a TV show and used that to patch in the missing music. Then I used some applause after songs that took place earlier in the show to give a reasonable amount of applause after that last song. All of that is why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

If you're not familiar with the Shins, this is a very good way to get started.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 Pressed in a Book (Shins)
02 talk (Shins)
03 Kissing the Lipless (Shins)
04 When I Goose-Step (Shins)
05 talk (Shins)
06 One by One All Day (Shins)
07 talk (Shins)
08 Turn a Square (Shins)
09 talk (Shins)
10 Pink Bullets (Shins)
11 talk (Shins)
12 Mine's Not a High Horse (Shins)
13 talk (Shins)
14 Girl Inform Me (Shins)
15 Saint Simon (Shins)
16 talk (Shins)
17 Girl on the Wing (Shins)
18 talk (Shins)
19 Eating Styes from Elephants Eyes (Shins)
20 talk (Shins)
21 So Says I (Shins)
22 talk (Shins)
23 Young Pilgrims (Shins)
24 talk (Shins)
25 Gone for Good (Shins)
26 talk (Shins)
27 Caring Is Creepy (Shins)
28 talk (Shins)
29 The Celibate Life (Shins)
30 New Slang (Shins)
31 talk (Shins)
32 Know Your Onion [Edit] (Shins)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16146278/TSHNS2003_FrstAvnueMnnplisMN__11-14-2003_atse.zip.html

James Mercer is the leader and songwriter for the band. So since I couldn't find a good photo of the whole band, I decided to use a photo of him. This is from a concert at the Wiltern in Los Angeles in June 2004.