Rolling Stone takes us backstage with the Shins, who became the first Sub Pop band to play SNL Saturday night. (Nirvana was well within the Geffen fold by the time of its performance.) Combined with host Jake Gyllenhaal, this episode couldn't have gotten much more mainstream-indier. The band played two songs: "Phantom Limb" off the upcoming Wincing the Night Away, which finds that band in fine, steady, let's-not-reinvent-the-wheel-nor-the-Shins form; and arguably the band's biggest hit, the mixtape-for-a-new-relationship staple "New Slang" from 2001's Oh, Inverted World.

Bassist Dave Hernandez--clutching a much-emptied glass at the after-party--pointed out his mother mingling amid SNL cast members like Amy Poehler and Andy Samberg and admitted that he got a little emotional toward the end of the show. ''"Afterwards, when we were doing that hugging thing,''" Hernandez recalled, ''"it was like '''Whoa, my mom is here. My mom let me stay up late to watch Elvis Costello on SNL when I was a kid and now she'''s here.'''''"

I think I'd start crying too if I saw my mom schmoozing with Andy Samberg. Here's the band's performance of "Phantom Limb":