The chill trio that is the Jins slowly came out on stage, tuned up their guitars, turned on their neon sign, and off they went. They opened with ‘Clementine’, their self-proclaimed “only soft song… so, moving on..”. They promptly dove right in with something a little louder.
On stage, they make up quite the group. Their bright blonde lead singer and guitarist, Ben Larson, would have made my high school daydreams come true. Their bass player bobbed around with his eyes cast down at this guitar, once in a while letting a coy smile spread across his face, hearing shouts from the crowd as he let his eyes wander in their direction. As they turned the heat up on stage (metaphorically speaking), their drummer shed his shirt, in true 90’s grunge style.
Sharing unreleased music throughout the night, bringing their own take on a Nirvana, Weezer, Pixies kind of vibe, they gave their fans a lot to listen to, and the crowd loved it all. You know you’ve got a loyal audience when you play unreleased music, and they already know every word, every cue, and scream along with you the entire night. Needless to say, I know I’m not the only one looking forward to more of their music being released.
One of my favourite anecdotes of the evening was when they played their song, ‘Edna’, introduced as a song about an important woman in Ben’s life, a 4th-grade teacher from Springfield Elementary… As a girl growing up watching the Simpsons, this song would definitely have made it onto my mixed tape.
In response to a cheering crowd, they wrapped up their set with the much requested, ‘She Said’, to the audience’s delight. They swiftly moved right into their 2 song encore, after only a few chants of “one more song”, and without leaving the stage.
The show was an awesome Jins take on 90’s grunge rock, complete with crowd surfing and a few friendly stage crashers. Ten out of ten, I’d see them again, least of all for their heartthrob of a lead singer.
