Australia - The Shins - Wincing The Night Away - 2007

Once dinner had finished, we all piled back into the Singh's Acura and headed towards The Middle East (after setting the GPS, of course). The Middle East is Boston's equivalent of Mercury Lounge or Bowery Ballroom (bigger than the first, smaller than the second) it's a bar with a performance space where your mid-level Indie bands play. I was under the assumption that we would be hitting the bar half of the venue, enjoying some tunes and beverages and then going our separate ways...and yet again, my assumptions would prove to be incorrect.

As soon as we got to the bar, Uncle Singh proceeded to lead us down to the performance area and buy us tickets for whatever band happened to be playing...a band that absolutely none of us knew.

The lower level stank of patchouli and BO. The band itself was some sort of sludge metal band from Athens Georgia, that was louder than even the younger of us wanted to deal with. I was decidedly older than most of the audience, so I can only imagine how the older Singhs felt. Aunt Singh was certainly doing her best to appear as if she was having a good time, though she was clearly not. All of us tried to be gracious, since they boys' uncle had purchased our cover...but clearly none of us were having much fun. Anand and I stepped outside to smoke and get out of the noise and stench and the rest of the group followed us...it was clear that we would not be going back in.


I've been listening to Wincing The Night Away a little bit lately...it's not the crushing disappointment that it seemed on first release. In the early part of the decade, The Shins released a wonderful, shimmery indie-pop debut album. Shortly after their less shimmery, but still quite good second album was released, tool bag etraordinaire Zach Braff saddled them with the unreasonable expectation of being "the band that will change your life"...suddenly they went from being a cozy little secret to the poster children for the new wave of Indie bands...and that's when they seem to have hit the wall. WTNA isn't a bad album, it just couldn't possibly live up those sort of expectations...fucking Braff.