Pop Break Live: The Shins ‘Oh, The Inverted world 21st Birthday Tour’ at Franklin Music Hall in Philadelphia, PA — August 26, 2022
Words: Christian Bischoff | Photos: Al Mannarino
21 years ago The Shins released their debut album, Oh Inverted World, and cemented themselves as mainstays of the new millennium’s indie rock movement. Following four more records and mainstream success on the back of their Garden State feature, the band, fronted by songwriter James Mercer, returned to Franklin Music Hall on Friday [August 26, 2022] to revisit the record that announced their arrival in the early aughts.
The venue was packed wall-to-wall. It’s a rare pleasure to go to a show populated exclusively by diehard fans. While Mercer and the band effortlessly worked through the record note by note to levels of studio perfection, the crowd sang and swayed to every song, taking in fan favorite “Girl Inform Me” and sleepy B-side “Your Algebra” with seemingly equal joy.
They played the record cover to cover, and a hush fell over the crowd as the final notes of “Girl Inform Me” rang out. As the familiar “Oooohs” and first chords of acoustic guitar filled the air, lighters and cellphone lights materialized almost instantaneously throughout the crowd, swaying in time to the opening lines of “New Slang.” The crowd sang each word with a kind of reverence, not overpowering Mercer, as so often happens in these moments of collective recognition, but accompanying him gently, as if mumbling the words to a millennial’s prayer.
“The Celibate Life” followed loud applause, and the band finished the record before promising further hits, “just for the fans.” Following two songs from the group’s sophomore effort (the perennial favorite “Mine’s Not a High Horse” and “Turn a Square”), Mercer wailed through a cover of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” to the delight of the audience, admitting, to collective giggling, that he’s always been a bit uncomfortable declaring his sexiness in front of a crowd.
A quiet fell over the crowd. The low hiss of guitars primed for the amp filled the air. “I have to prepare myself for this one,” Mercer explained. Then, yelling into the microphone in instantly recognizable lines that recall a repressive German schoolteacher, the band launched into “Australia,” powering through the hit, the first of the night off of 2007’s Wincing the Night Away. The night ended with a raucous mash-up of “Sleeping Lessons” and Tom Petty’s “American Girl.” When the band left the stage and the lights went up, we collectively shuffled out into the streets of Philadelphia – everyone I saw was smiling.
The Shins Setlist via setlist.fm:
Caring Is Creepy
One by One All Day
Weird Divide
Know Your Onion
Girl Inform Me
New Slang
The Celibate Life
Girl on the Wing
Your Algebra (with opening band, Joseph)
Play Video
Pressed in a Book
The Past and Pending
Mine’s Not a High Horse
Turn a Square
Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? (Rod Stewart cover)
Australia
Saint Simon
Simple Song
Encore:
The Fear
Sleeping Lessons (with Tom Petty’s “American Girl” interlude)
