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Duck & Cover Wants Your "I Saw Them Back When" Story


Because we all have at least one . . . hell, some of us are one

It was 2001, and I was still living in Wichita, KS. Dakin, smart boy that he is, had high-tailed it to Seattle the previous year. Since arriving, he'd been diligently emailing me bands I needed to hear. Of course, most of the bands he mentioned had little more than an EP out, thus making their discovery in the Bible Belt somewhat rare. Thank god, then, that we still had Napster (or KaZaa, actually. Napster had just been shut down a few months earlier, come to think of it) because Dakin had told me the latest must hear: a little band from New Mexico called The Shins. I downloaded all I could; listened, loved, and decided I had to see them live.

That year The Shins were touring to promote Oh, Inverted World. Being that they were a relatively unknown indie band at the time, they were hitting a lot of the college towns in the mid west. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch their show at my local college town (Lawrence), so I drove to the next nearest: Norman, Oklahoma.

They were booked in at the Veterans Hall to play an all ages show (read: no beer). The "hall" turned out to be the basement, and all the ages were definitely of the under variety. No stage lights hung from the ceiling because there was no stage. When it was time for The Shins to go on, they simply got up off the couch, picked up their instruments, and walked into the corner and started playing.

I remember a huge hole right in front of where they were playing and the fact that James Mercer had a cold. He would occasionally wipe his nose, and toss the tissue behind him, which piled as the night progressed. Each time he turned back around he would say, "I'm really sorry. I know that's kinda gross."

The music, however, was fantastic. If you've ever seen The Shins, imagine that same energy and playfulness in a basement with about 50 other people.

So what's your "I saw them back when" story?

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