Over 500 miles and worth it

Well, I'm still recovering from the effects of Thursday's (and Friday's for that matter) round-trip journey to Houston for the Death Cab for Cutie / Franz Ferdinand concert. It was a great show and well worth the drive, but more on the show later. The drive was by and large uneventful, which is good. We were delayed something like 30 minutes by some road work near Crowley, but calling it road work maybe overstates things. After being stuck in traffic for half an hour, our obstruction came in sight: a literal rolling road crew when men pouring tar on the reflectors on the highway. WTF!? Do that shit at night. Oh well, we got there in plenty of time still, but I wanted to wind down at the Hard Rock next door before the show.

Regarding the show. The first band to play was "The Cribs." They were from England and were more or less pop/punk. Their sound was ok, and the two vocalists harmonized pretty well. The guitar riffs weren't that exciting, but the songwriting was pretty good, and the six or seven songs they played were all fairly different from each other. All in all, I'm not sure you could ask much from an opening band.

Death Cab played next. It was fantastic. They played songs from all five of their major albums, though more from the new record, "Plans." Some pretty much stayed true to the cuts on the albums, while others deviated in the spirit of live performance. The highlight of the show for me was during "We Looked Like Giants" (perhaps my favorite Death Cab song) when Ben Gibbard sat down at a smaller drum kit at center stage while he and the drummer went back and forth during an extended jam. They played off each other, playing both simultaneously and splitting parts. Both Ben and Chris (the other guitarist/vocalist) switched off guitar to piano/keys for different songs. After a 90-minute set, they ended with another extended jam culminating in a feedback laden final note. Without a doubt it was one of the most entertaining sets of music I've seen. A note on the stage. There was a large black backdrop with barren white trees in addition to two plaster houses with lights inside. Very subtle, and it looked like something that could have been in a Radiohead video, so very cool.

After about a 30 minute break and set change, Franz came on. Their stage setup include a series of stairs on concentric half circles used to position members of the band on different vertical planes while playing. Franz also utilized a large backdrop with two different images. The first was the artwork from their new album, the second was a picture with four individual shots of the band members. Pretty cool. They played songs from both of their albums, and pretty much stuck to the albums. They did change things up a little bit for a couple of songs, but not as impressively as Death Cab. It was very cool to see them live, but I'm not sure that I'd drive that distance to see just them, whereas I'd do it in a heartbeat to see Death Cab again.

The Verizon Wireless Theater was pretty cool. Like I said above, it is literally adjacent to a Hard Rock, so that makes for a cool pre/post-show hangout, provided you have the time :p. We stood at basically floor level in the GA section, and there was a single tier of seats above. We stood about eight rows back, so were very close to the band. Neat place all in all. Also, I remember when getting off the interstate that Houston didn't suck, which is a surprising sentiment from me. I believe it is the theatre district where Verizon Theatre is located, but we didn't get to see much else. The aquarium is across the street in addition to the opera center, I think. Anyway, I liked it way more than I thought I would. The crowd though was a bit of a joke, just as many high schoolers as college kids. Many of which looked like they just walked of the set of the O.C. It seemed that a majority of the crowd had only heard of Death Cab from their latest alubm, and more seemed to be bigger fans of Franz.

In the end, like the title says, the show was definitely worth the trip. Those of you who've not checked out Death Cab, definitely should. They definitely have a much more pop sound than the other stuff I listen to, but that's not to say that it's boring. Ben Gibbard is a fantastic songwriter and they are all talented musicians. Even better than buying their albums would be going to see them live if you have the chance.