Riot on the Plaza
allen epley
SHINER announce first reunion show
Nearly a decade has passed since SHINER played their final show at the Madrid Theatre in 2003. The group left their legacy at a high point, having released a handful of acclaimed full-lengths and singles on labels ranging from Sub Pop (freshly into their Warner partnership) to Kansas City’s own Anodyne Records. The band was heralded for their affinity for twinkly, spaced out guitar work and chunky riffs, and were contemporaries of fellow space-rock cohorts Hum and Failure, managing to curate a sizable fan base in their eleven years of activity.
All things must come to an end, and the same is true for SHINER. The band existed no more, but the members were anything but silent in their projects that followed. Allen Epley returned shortly after with The Life and Times, a band that to this day releases material able to rival that of SHINER’s in their sonic magnitude. Josh Newton and Paul Malinowski (both formerly bassists in Season to Risk) as well as Jason Gerken (Molly McGuire) all saw fleeting glimpses of celebrity in their acts to follow, Newton joining nationally touring bands From Autumn to Ashes and Every Time I Die, and Malinowski and Gerken taking up with Open Hand.
Years of silence came from the band, and occasionally a blip would surface with rumors of a reunion. Record nerds had something new to be excited about in early 2012, when news that the band’s final full-length The Egg was finally getting the vinyl treatment. In addition to this, the band announced that they would come together for a few reunion shows later in the year. Four reunion shows, to be exact — and it doesn’t take a genius to piece together that Epley lives in Chicago, Newton in NYC, Gerken in LA, and Malinowski in KC, making three of the four shows in the largest metropolitan areas in the country, but only one in the best (spoiler alert: I’m talking about Kansas City).
Today, the Granada in Lawrence revealed that they will be the host of the band’s single area reunion, to be held Friday, August 24th. The $20 tickets will be released this Friday, and it is suggested that you grab yours quickly, as it will surely sell out. No openers have been announced yet, but come on, does that really matter?
UPDATE 04/24/12 — the rest of the band’s reunion shows have been announced, and are as follows:
08/11/12 @ Irving Plaza (New York City)
08/18/12 @ Echoplex (Los Angeles)
08/24/12 @ The Granada (Lawrence)
08/25/12 @ The Bottom Lounge (Chicago)
Riot on the Plaza 