Death Cab Live @ Warfield

Commensurate with the downtown San Francisco concertgoing experience is winding your way through throngs of homeless on Market Street and wondering if your car windows will still be intact when you return. Thankfully that was the case last night and I could focus solely on hearing a great concert from Death Cab For Cutie.

The last time I got to see this band was at the Miramar Theatre, a tiny little place that holds possibly less than four or five hundred souls and where after seeing them you felt connected to a band and part of a select few who all knew how great this music truly was. That was over four years ago on the East Side of Milwaukee. Shortly before that I was exposed to their music by hearing the sounds of "A Movie Script Ending" blaring from my roommates stereo as the house was being cleaned. Everytime I hear that song I am transported back to that sunny autumnal afternoon and I can smell a hint of pledge and see the sun pouring through the front windows and reflecting onto the wood floors. I fell in love with that song and the rest of the "Photo Album."

Which brings me to last night and the yapping girls who would not shut the hell up sitting behind us at the Warfield. When the soaring chords of Death Cab weren't rising to the heights of the theater to the delight of the most hardcore fans, the girls could be heard discussing what song they heard on the "OC" the sinfully delightful show for tweens and high schoolers alike that is also masquerading as a flashy vehicle for pushing previously unknown and great music to the masses. I don't know if it was a good thing for shows like the "OC" to help push along a great band like Death Cab who has given us an overall beautiful record like "Plans" or if it would be delightful to still have them signed to Barsuk Records and keep me smiling when I drive down the road, windows down singing old tunes that wide-eyed passerby would hear as they stopped at a traffic light.

Gibbard was asked in an interview about the relevance of watching the shows his music has appeared on and he answered; "I watch 'Six Feet Under,' but that's about it. I mean, 'The O.C.' is a fine enough show, but I never feel inclined to watch it, I guess."

In any event, Death Cab is here and their star is rising, even though I wish I had to savor them all to myself, which of course is quite selfish. It is an interesting perspective to remember, much like the elegiac lamentations of a lost love or a crumbling relationship, the older albums and then welcome their new "Plans" and realize it is quite a good album.

Last night when I heard the initial and all to familiar chords of "Movie Script Ending" I bobbed my head and danced in my seat and smiled because I was able to share in the experience of hearing some great songs that brought back so many memories. It shows that the mixed crowd of newbies and true fans was held in check and hasn't defected. The newbies got their few songs and Death Cab delighted the hardcore fans with tunes dating back to their first record, actually a demo 4-track tape.

Hopefully like a budding new love, this relationship will continue to grow. So far from what I have seen, I have the facts and well, I am voting Yes!

Setlist from Warfield; November 14, 2005:

Marching Bands of Manhattan
We Laugh Indoors
The New Year
Title and Registration
Photobooth
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
Different Names for the Same Thing
Company Calls
Company Calls epilogue
What Sarah Said
Movie Script Ending
Brothers on a Hotel Bed
Crooked Teeth
Pictures in Exhibition?
Sound of Settling
---
I Will Follow You in to the Dark (acoustic solo)
TITLE TRACK!
Prove my Hypothesis