Death Cab for Cutie - 10/19/04 - Avalon, Boston, MA
Ahh Death Cab o'my heart.
Kelly was scheduled to attend avec moi, but like the most of Boston, the Red Sox game took priority above all things. So I happily shed my work attire for more appropriate concert dress, watched a few minutes of the game, and timed my departure so that I would completely miss the opener-- Pretty Girls Make Graves, a bad I cheerfully admit I have a large, and possibly irrational, dislike for. In their defense, Death Cab-- as well as much of the planet-- appears to adore them. They enthused about them endlessly and encouraged applause when their name was mentioned. Also to PGMG's credit, they appeared to be peeking out from backstage to gleefully watch most of the Death Cab show. That wins points in my book anyway.
I arrived about twenty minutes or so before the end of the break, just enough time to check out the merch, check the coat, and hit the ladies room-- all the pre-show essentials. The merch was (as always) ridiculously cheap and pretty. Whoever designed the autumn theme for the autumn tour gets major smooches from me. Also, if that same person designed the "We Have the Facts and We Are Voting" t-shirt, they get my first-born.
The show itself was incredible. There was a nice balance of old and new, quiet and loud, bouncy and slow. I still haven't gotten a live performance of "Kaleidoscope" out of them, but I live in hope.
I'm not sure which was the high point of the evening, a) the fact that they closed on an absolutely incredible performance of "Guenivere"-- which is amazing live and my vote for required song on every set list, or b) the moment when they transitioned to a quiet, wistful rendition of Tina Turner's "I ain't missing you at all".
I love it when bands have a policy of working at least one cover song into each show. I love it even more when their covers are consistently awesome. Hearing the absolutely heart wrenching pause Ben Gibbrard inserts into the lyric "since you've been gone... away" goes down as one of my top-ten favorite concert moments ever.
They ended the encore with "I Need You So Much Closer". This isn't particularly surprising to me, given how in love with the song they all seem to be, but I always feel like the long musical interlude that builds after the long section of repeating the line "I need you so much closer..." comes across a bit too heavy and makes the song a miss. When the song comes crashing back on the lyric "so come on, come on" it does give it a kick and repair the moment to some extent, but it never fully works. I'm surprised they're still performing it this way, I've seen them three times now and each time it's the same, each time the crowd starts to get bored, each time it plays out too long. The band does seem to adore the moment however. Nicholas throws himself about the stage with abandon, Michael drums intensely, and Ben gets a real "I'm Ben Gibbrard and I mean this" expression. Ultimately, after such a good show, I feel a bit like an ungrateful wretch complaining about this one song.
However, I can not discuss this show without showing my total love for the crowd and for Bostonians as a whole. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the entirety of game six of the ALCS was followed in practically real-time by the audience. Small cheers erupted from across the venue throughout the night letting us all know every time that something good had happened. Groups passed cellphones along to other groups to share information and, while the band did try to keep us updated on the score from the stage, the audience clearly had more accurate intel and respectfully shouted more accurate score updates out during appropriate lulls in the show (note for the future: tuning breaks are particularly good moments for these interruptions).
At the end of the night the final score report on the game received about as much applause as Death Cab did. I didn't want the show to be over, but even I wanted to get home to see the end of the game. In case you didn't hear, we won. We won some more. And all of Boston rejoiced.
