I missed seeing Jun 18, 2008 3:14PM PST

The Strokes because at the very last minute one of my best friends decided the tix were too expensive at somewhere in the ballpark of $80-$100.

On the bright side my Aunt Katie was in town and missing that meant instead eating at Dick's Last Resort (it's a place where the waiters put funny hats on your head then make fun of you) and then going to see March Madness finals (which she had been following enough to purchase $200 scalped tickets for all of us... yikes!). To be honest I was happier about the fact my favorite aunt was having a great time, cause sporting events aren't my thing if I'm too far up and have to use the center court big screen anyway.

I missed The Mars Volta because when I called my friend to give me a ride to Deep Ellum's Palladium Ballroom he told me he was already up there with another of my friends who told me tix were sold out anyway. So I guess this had a bright side too as attempting purchasing tix last minute would've been a waste regardless.

So when my best friend from middle school said on Facebook he was going to Death Cab For Cutie's upcoming concert, having only ever seen metal concerts proper and wanting something different I got my shift covered the minute someone offered to do it and went on my way to Nokia Theater (which is where Gigantour was held, btw).

When I first got there, I started looking for my friend in the lobby. He had a pit ticket and I was all the way upstairs so we were trying to find each other by phone. Eventually I got tired of asking him if he was there yet and took the elevator to my seats (which I didn't even know Nokia had, having been much closer for Gigantour).

Pretty soon, the opening band Roadwave popped out to deliver some nice indie-infused tunes. I actually thought it was Death Cab for Cutie at first because they hadn't properly introduced themselves except for "hello" and I couldn't see any faces from where I sat. Eventually they got around to it though.



I was kind of glad they weren't the closer because while entertaining and a good opening act they weren't incredibly special. It may have also been the extremely white girls behind me who talked through most of the set only to react to the lead singer's extremely white crowd interaction. "You guys rocked my shoe off, I had to bend down and tie it" was clever enough but then the shrill agreement of "like OMGosh you rock too! Like sooo hot!" was reminding me that while I was enjoying the tunes I was not exactly with my peers here.

They did a really cool closing song by having every member come play a part of the drum set in tandem before going back to their respective instruments and I might have video of that but I doubt it, having been so far away anyway plus not using the camera correctly. Oh well, they went off stage and I met up with my friend in the lobby.

It's weird how when you know someone all your life you can't remember them looking any different despite that they used to be most certainly much shorter and had a smaller voice but having been growing up with them you never notice cause it's the same for you.

Mostly, we talked about college, high school graduation parties and other music we liked. He's going to SMU because he's smart like that. I'm going to SFA (which some say stands for "Sex, Fun, and Alcohol") cause I'm semi-directionless like that.

Anywho, after saying he was catching a plane to Miami the morning after this concert we went back into the arena and Death Cab came out. He had mentioned that they never start with the good stuff and he was right. I was starting to wonder what I was getting myself into.

Three songs into it though, they started playing songs with much better beats and such catchy choruses that I just couldn't help singing along and moving in my chair a little. A little too much apparently as a girl behind me couldn't see when I leaned so far forward. She was really sweet about it, but I still wasn't as satisfied having to sit straight the rest of the night. Not much moving room lol. Not to mention I'm used to just standing up for every well-known band.

As the night continued I was actually pretty moved by a lot of the lower key songs and their sort of hypnotic sound, particularly one that said something along the lines of "I close the blinds to let the soul in". I was actually starting to enjoy this prospect of sitting down to watch a concert. At the same time, the seat right next to me being empty made me feel pretty akward because a lot of this music would have been better with a date.



When it got closer to the end, they played the three songs I actually knew from them back to back. First was "Soul Meets Body" which was so much better live that it was actually one of my favorite songs of the night despite hating the recorded version. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" had everyone singing along, including me, because a dare to see how well my friend Ryan could sing it was the only reason I bothered to look into Death Cab. "I Will Possess Your Heart" was thank God, cut shorter than the album version. It's still a good song, but much better with proper editing, and the couple songs that followed were even better.



Finally they pretended to say goodbye which I actually believed when I saw various sound guys out there, and had they left it there I would've been totally happy but nope... five encore songs. None of which made me feel the same contentment as their other tunes. At least my friend was glad they closed with whatever song went "I just need you a little closer" or something like that. I personally found Megadeth's one-off classic encore of "Holy Wars" far more satisfying.

Still, I was a hell of a lot more entertained that I may have initially expected to be and really felt I got my money's worth. I won't be picking up albums any time soon but I'll definitely be scouring the nets for more of their tunes, and they were a great live act.