The Shins at Koko (17/05/06)

Dungen's sheer dedication to recreating the excesses of seventies prog-rock is kind of inspiring - their hair is simply magnificent and they even bring out a flute numerous times - but while their ten minute epics are never boring (more than can be said for, ooh, Dead Meadow) but while technically great they lack immediacy and passion and so still don't make for an especially great live show. And there's a suspicion that if it wasn't for a longstanding love of Camel and similar I might find them just as irritating as Wolfmother.

The Shins also start rather umpromisingly - James Mercer stands to the side of the stage and is thoroughly undemonstrative, his shyness seeming to weigh down a lot of the early songs. They are helped by enthusiasic keyboardist Marty Crandall, who in contrast takes centre stage and clearly loves it. He begins by thanking us for coming despite the game (Champions League final) being on, a theme he returns to throughout with cries of "The Shins 1 - Evil 0!" and frequent enquiries about the score as well as a final dismissal of the entire Spanish nation on finding that Arsenal have lost, and goes on to ask about Madonna's gig at Koko before singing an amusingly ramshackle cover of "Justify My Love" "Borderline".
Either his confidence rubs off on Mercer or they just hit their stride, but by the end of the set they seem almost a different band, with "New Slang" and "Saint Simon" reliably brilliant and a couple of new songs almost their match. The third album is due in Autumn, they claim, and should be good on tonight's showing - new songs generally seem harder than those of Chutes Too Narrow but without the dusty coating of noise of most of the Oh, Inverted World material.
They return for an encore after the longest gap I've ever seen - the lights even come on a few times and just as it seems certain that they can't be coming back they do, finishing with a vital and triumphant "So Says I", for a clear second half victory.