Two days after the initial announcement went out, Outside Lands has another major addition to its festival lineup. The Shins will be performing sometime over the weekend of Aug. 12-14 in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, their first live full-band show out since 2009.
Meanwhile, Modest Mouse has announced a scant few North Americanshows for the month of May, leading up to their appearance at Northwest-centric Sasquatch music festival in Seattle. Those are below. They also recently confirmed a stop in Australia for the Splendour in the Grass music festival
There’s some overlap in the fandom of these two acts, but also importantly, there seems to be some crossover of one member, Joe Plummer.
The drummer has been working on side project Mister Heavenly (aka Michael Cera’s band, sorry), but it seems he’s now drummer for both The Shins and Modest Mouse. (Fun fact: Mister Heavenly is on Sub Pop, The Shins’ old label, before James Mercer decided the next effort would be out on his own imprint.) He can be seen supporting Shin-man James Mercer when he broke out a new song live last month, posted below (via 24bit).
As I previously reported, Mercer has been hard at work on Broken Bells with Danger Mouse over the past year, most recently with their “Meyrin Fields” EP. It’s a collaboration that “will continue to record and tour together for the foreseeable future,” as said in a release. But like Beyonce and Glastonbury, the Outside Lands gig may signal the start of something new with that long-awaited Shins record.
A spokesperson for Modest Mouse indicated “there is no official info on a new album” at the time, but I wouldn’t put it past Isaac Brock et al. to preview some new material live this Spring. (And for what it’s worth, Modest Mouse also used to be on a prominent indie, Matador.)
And not to force it, but “Inception” score guitarist Johnny Marr did just quit The Cribs and may have some hours opening up (besides, y’know, two planned solo albums and movie soundtrack work)… The former Smiths guitarist toured with Modest Mouse toward the end of the ’00s.
Both the Shins’ and Modest Mouse’s last proper studio releases were out in 2007.
Here are Modest Mouse’s tour dates:
May 26 Boise, ID Knitting Factory
May 27 Missoula, MT Big Sky Brewery
May 28 Spokane, WA Knitting Factory
May 29 George, WA Sasquatch Music Festival (SOLD OUT)