And now the state line felt like the Berlin wall

Death Cab and Franz played last night. Here are some random thoughts on the concert:

- I finally figured out who the band is one that Telus commercial with the parrot and the cell phone, but only because they were playing that song when we got to the show. In case you are interested the band is The Cribs and they are from Wakefield, England. I will be checking them out because their live show was fairly entertaining and I like to see how that translates onto a CD.

- Death Cab for Cutie had what was definitively the best set design I have ever witnessed in a concert. Granted it was no U2 Pop tour, but who wants to listen to the same song played by 40 year olds for three hours anyways? So Death Cab's set consisted of two small, crooked white houses, some large silhouettes of trees and then behind that what appeared to me to be large office towers, or just the lights from their windows. I have no idea if that is a good description of what was going on, but it definitely had a good vibe to it, and made the show more enjoyable. How often do set designs do that?

- When Ben Gibbard played “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” the whole place erupted for the “You and me have seen everything to see, From Bangkok to Calgary” line. It was so loud that Gibbard had to step back and laugh before following up with the next line. Definitely a high point.

- Death Cab played damn near everything from Plans, and a bunch of older stuff. I am fairly confident that their set was substantially longer than Franz’s set.

- Franz opened with This Boy and I was honestly disappointed with Alex K’s vocals on it. Luckily they picked it up for each and every song after that. Alex K. is probably one of the more entertaining frontmen I have seen. He has good personality, and seems like he is having fun. Unlike their bass player. That dude seemed out of place for the whole show.

- For “Outsiders” (maybe?) which I thought was the last song before the encore Franz’s keyboard player jumped from the keyboards to the drum kit and proceeded to rock out on the same kit as Paul Thompson, facing the drummer. It was just pretty cool until all of Death Cab ran out and kicked it on random percussion instruments for the rest of the song, then it got awesome. There was a solid two minute drum breakdown in there which I would describe as thunderous. It was a pretty cool way to go out.

That was probably one of the more enjoyable concerts I have been to of late.

Peace.