The human brain is weird, sometimes things just don’t add up. Why, for example, can somebody like peanut butter but hate peanuts? Or try to squeeze through the last quarter-second of a yellow light, but get annoyed when the guy behind them does it? It baffles.

As you may have gleamed from the title, this baffledom extends to none other than the Cold War Kids. I’ve had several run-ins with this OC band (like, as in their music) since they began their steady ascent to popularity a few years ago, and despite a damning heap of evidence suggesting I should like them (a lot), it just seems to be one of those things, and I have no idea why.

To demonstrate the depth of this conundrum (which I’m sure is shattering your world as you read this), here is a list of everything the Cold War Kids have going for them, in my modest opinion:

1. Nathan Willett’s voice is unique, loud and completely amazing.

2. Their sense of melody is pretty much genius.

3. Their choices in instrumentation aren’t obvious, and provide just what each song needs.
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I thought the Palladium floor was going to break through during the brief minutes between the end of the Shins’ set and the encore. The crowd was screaming, stomping and chanting like wild animals, and I can only imagine the band was backstage feeling kind of frightened.

The Shins, a band I think everyone should see live before they die, Had just walked offstage after a fun, tight set at the Hollywood Palladium Sunday night, and the crowd immediately went from a mellow, jovial pack of smiling faces to a shrieking, frothing pile of freaks. I guess they didn’t want their serenity to end.

Going on after openers Delta Spirit (who is definitely worthy of their own review, just not over this lunch break), The Shins took the stage amid another uproar, accompanied by a couple of new band members. They started with “Australia” and a few other songs from their latest, Wincing the Night Away. Not to spend too much time on words (there’s a video here, too), they swept through a smooth, clean set of third, second and first-album favorites including the now-becoming-obligatory “New Slang,” “Phantom Limb” and the trippy-in-a-good-way “Sea Legs.” Aside from the album songs, the band also let everyone in on some of their newest material, including “Double Bubble” and the punchy “The Rifle’s Spiral,” which featured some sweet guitar hammering.
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