Viva Voce opened up the sold-out Shins show at the Orpheum Theater a while back. VV is a husband/wife duo of drums and guitar, kind of like the White Stripes but with the instruments reversed and with a totally different sound. Viva Voce play poppy rock songs, with sometimes heavy guitar feedback. They proved to be a perfect opener for the Shins; just different enough to be intriguing.
In between sets I observed and digested the diverse crowd that has become the Shins fan base. They’ve really made it, judging by the variety of people that seem to be champions of their music. I’d estimate that at least one quarter of the crowd was under 16 years old, while another quarter was over 40, leaving the remaining 50 percent anywhere in between. It was charming to see the kids rockin’ out alongside their parents. The Shins have seemingly embraced this new found familial audience, as they treated them to an incredible cover of Pink Floyd’s “Darkside of the Moon.”
The rest of the Shins set was expectedly entertaining. When we saw the Shins open for Belle and Sebastian at the Hollywood Bowl, its seemed like frontman, James Mercer was a bit nervous and needed to come out of his shell a bit. At the Orpheum show, he seemed more comfortable. In the past, keyboardist/guitarist/bassist/funny-man Marty Crandall took the helm with witty banter in between songs, but tonight Marty took a back seat and let Mercer enjoy the spotlight. It was refreshing to get a feel for his personality. Even if Mercer isn’t always the consummate front man, the rest of the band makes up for his apparent shyness on stage with their constant energy and antics. Bassist, Dave Hernandez, at one point asked the audience if they liked Capri Sun. Strangely enough, it might not have been such an odd question, seeing as quite a few audience members probably still get it in there brown bag school lunch.
The Shins stage production qualities are elevating along with their success too. They employed starry looking lights and a beautiful backdrop that was obviously created by the artist who drew the most recent album artwork, but it wasn’t a replica of the cover, which was a nice treat.
Highlights of the set of course included “New Slang,” popularized by the movie “Garden State,” and “Kissing the Lipless.” Overall, the Shins delivered a flawless performance for the band of the new generation of indie-rock fans.
