i heart dcfc

guess who got to see death cab for cutie tuesday night at the paramount? yeah, that would be yours truly. uh huh, uh huh, uh huh uh huh uh huh.

i was able to tear sean away from his overwhelmingly busy high school schedule by buying him a ticket (a consolation prize for the premature and unfortunate end of his football season). we decided to make like old people and sit rather than stand in the crowd, which grew to considerable size after the opening act, pretty girls make graves, who were awful, terribly awful. never see them in concert. you will want to kill yourself, because they should really leave their genre to the yeah yeah yeahs, cuz at least they know what they're doing and karen o is the fucking shiznit.

ANYWAY!!!!!!! Death Cab was fucking AWESOME. I can't remember what they opened with, only that it was not from Transatlanticism. From the aforementioned album they played (in no particular order): sound of settling, lack of color, tiny vessels (which i never liked until i heard it live), license and registration, we looked like giants, the lightness, new year, expo '86, and even transatlanticism! I just realized it, but the only song off that album that they didn't play was death of an interior decorator, which just happens to be my favorite song. figures. but i still love ben. i wanted to get there hella early so that i could be in front because i'm very short and would not be able to see otherwise. but if for no other reason, i wanted to be up front so that ben gibbard could sweat on me. as you can imagine, sean was not too keen on that idea.

as always, death cab was in immaculate form. their drumming sounded like studio, if you didn't know any better (or were ashlee simpson) you'd think the drumming was pre-recorded. the lighting was surprisingly different and highly effective. they had lights on the sides of the stage that lit up the filigreed walls on either side of the stage. one of the coolest moments was when they played "movie script ending" and there was one bright light shining out right behind the drum, so there was the silohuette of the bass drum and the bright light so it totally looked like a train coming down a tunnel (and for those of you who don't know the song...the drums are supposed to sound like a train and ben is singing about how the sound that the train is always making). it made me grin with glee and i wondered if anyone else was picking up on their nuance.

another outstanding song was "photobooth." it was a really rocked out version, which i had never heard before. i've heard acoustic photobooth, studio photobooth and now rocked out photobooth. however, my favorite song of the set was a song i had never heard before, and i couldn't really understand any of the lyrics so i couldn't search for the song. i have since discovered that the song is called "amputations" and it is a totally awesome song with a totally sweet drumline.

inbetween songs, ben talked about the election and how disappointed he was. they played the song they made for the move on cd and dedicated it to 2008.

the best part of the whole night, though, was the encore, because they brought out fucking eddie vedder. EDDIE VEDDER. eddie vedder came out on stage and played a song with them. he sang AND had a hella tight guitar solo. sean and i were freaking out like little kids. we got to see death cab for cutie play with eddie vedder. how wild is that. afterward, ben said "I wish I could tell my 14 year old self what my 28 year old self is doing."

all in all, it was a really fantastic concert. death cab always delivers.

here are some links to much better reviews of the concert

Seattle Times

Seattle PI