{"id":9818,"date":"2012-03-11T07:12:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T15:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=9818"},"modified":"2012-03-11T07:32:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T15:32:32","slug":"the-shins-hurdle-the-snl-hex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2012-03\/the-shins-hurdle-the-snl-hex\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shins Hurdle the SNL Hex"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Shins<\/strong> were the musical guests on SNL<\/strong> last night in support of their fine new album, Port of Morrow<\/strong>.\u00a0 We’re happy to report they soundly overcame the SNL musical hex.\u00a0 Check out their performances below, replete with back-up singers, of Simple Song<\/em><\/strong> and It’s Only Life<\/em><\/strong> off of Port of Morrow<\/strong>.\u00a0 Leader James Mercer<\/strong> was in fine vocal form throughout, even dropping down briefly (at minute 3:00 on Simple Song<\/em>) into “human.”\u00a0 Mercer also seems to have dropped his lyrics down to a discernible sub-Jabberwocky<\/em> compared to prior albums.\u00a0 The newly-added Jessica Dobson<\/strong> (of Deep Sea Diver<\/a>) gave her best St. Vincent-<\/strong>simulacrum in both guise and guitar-playing (a compliment we assure you).\u00a0 Though the band fared far better than other recent SNL musical guests, once again the SNL sound was suspect on Simple Song<\/em>, with the other vocalists’ vocals mixed way too low.\u00a0 Thankfully the sound was fixed by the time the band came back for It’s Only Life, <\/em>with the background vocals sounding simply charming.\u00a0\u00a0 Check ’em both below courtesy of the Audio Perv<\/a>.<\/p>\n