By Jordan Bickham
Staff Writer

After selling out the House of Blues, the indie rock group The Shins impressed the large crowd, leaving audience members with a ringing in their ears and great memories.  Being a huge fan on the Shins, I had high expectations for the concert.  Needless to say, The Shins easily surpassed my expectations in every aspect of its performance.

For a while, The Shins was a relatively obscure group, but after Natalie Portman mentioned the song New Slang in the film Garden State (2004), saying, “It’ll change your life, I swear,” the band caught momentum.

Dallas was one of the last shows on the tour for its more recent album, Port of Morrow, which came out in March.  Although the concert was centered around the new album, the band made sure to play many favorites from one of its most popular albums, Wincing the Night Away, from 2007.

But even before The Shins got on stage, the concert started off with a spectacular show from the smaller, more obscure, indie band, White Rabbits.  Although I had not heard of the band before, after its performance, I was ready to download some of its music.

The White Rabbits not only put on a great show with its excitement and hyper attitudes, but its music was very unique and overall fun to listen to.  The singer had unique vocals, the drummer was incredibly talented and the audience could definitely see the band was having fun.

In fact, the White Rabbits put on such an incredible opening act it was hard to believe The Shins had not even come on stage yet.

Finally, about an hour after the White Rabbits’ performance, The Shins went on stage.  It kicked off the show with Simple Song, one of the more popular tracks from the new album.  While it was the first song, it was easily the best song of the entire night.  Although I was not a fan of the song after listening to it on iTunes, I instantly fell in love after hearing it performed live.

The Shins started off strong and continued strongly through the entire show without missing a beat.

Not only was the musical performance amazing, but the stage presence was equally amazing.  All members of the band were involved in the performance, and they knew how to work a crowd.

The visual part of their concert was also well done.  Unlike some concerts where there is more show than music, The Shins focused on the music.  Even so, the stage setup and lights enhanced the performance instead of distracting from it. The light show behind them was unique to every song and made the entire concert visually appealing.

Each song was performed almost flawlessly – some even rivaled the studio version of the track.  Even the older songs the band reminisced on from older albums were performed perfectly.  I was thrilled when it included some personal favorites of mine from their previous albums such as “Phantom Limb”, “Saint Simon” and “Australia”.

After playing the entirety of their set list, the group walked off stage despite constant cheering for an encore.  The audience spent around 15 minutes praising the band before The Shins finally got back on stage and played “No Way Down”, “New Slang” and “One by One All Day” to wrap up its show.

Overall, The Shins proved it could put on an impressive show, wowing the audience and making the temporary hearing loss completely worth it.