I just got back from Jesse's birthday bash at the House of Blues.
Mine was two days ago. He must have been a Valentine's baby as
well. I'm sure most of you here have already seen them live, but if
you haven't, you're missing out. Just about everything they played
was rewritten to some extent. I hope they issue some sort of
official live disc because I'd love to get a copy of these alternate
versions. The band were even better than I expected (and I was
expecting a lot). The set list was pretty much exactly what I
thought it would be. They only played three songs that aren't on the
two albums (four if you count 15 seconds of Holy Diver). Two of the
songs were from their singles, When I Goosestep and Eating Styes...
The real surprise was their choice of a cover song. My three
favorite bands in the whole wide world are The Church, The House of
Love and The Shins, so when I heard The Shins cover The House of
Love's "Destroy the Heart", I nearly wet myself. Why hasn't anybody
said something about this until now? This couldn't have been their
first performance of it.

When I grow up, I want to be Marty Crandall, jack of all trades.
Problem is, I think I'm a few years older than he is. I'd better get
to work.

Apparently, now that there are enough songs in the Shins catalog for
a full setlist, the Flake Music era is officially dead and buried.
They didn't play a single pre-Shins song. It's too bad I didn't
discover them earlier.

Don't miss them!

Tim