Death Cab for Cutie tonight. (Adjectives to follow). Great! Awesome! Super-duper! Ben Gibb-irifc!

It’s a wonderful, wonderful, feeling to see a band you love. It’s like they’re playing for YOU. Not anybody else in the audience. But you. You sing every lyric, you feel every timechange, you experience the moment to the best of your abilites. You make it a memory.

I feel privilged and proud to have taken my girlfriend to her first great indie rock show. We’ve tried once or twice before, not as much as I’d like, but when you live in a corner of the country, the shows are scare. (And nothing compares to my six years in San Francisco anyway.) BUT! Finally. Tonight, we saw a band that I’ve loved for a year – and seeing for my first time – one of her new favorite bands. Also lucky enough to see a band at a relatively small venue while they embark on their journey upwards in recognition and audience-size. The audience was huge. And the venue was amazing. Well-air-conditioned, a modified club or bar of the past with multiple levels, a huge stage, and a lot of elbow room. The place is called Revolution, in Fort Lauderdale. I have a feeling we’ll be there again.

Finally, the show: It’s a rare thing (unfortantely) in these days to find a band with a consistent career. Death Cab for Cutie have four, high-quality CD’s with the odd weak song, but for the most part, a very large and very A-material catalog. Even their B-sides are great (Check out Death Cab’s bjork cover, “All Is Full of Love” for a real treat.) They played for about an hour an half, focusing mainly on their last two albums, one of which is huge in the vast-growing indie rock eruption. (Latins have explosions, we’ve got a slow, gradual, imbuing of awesomness in main-stream music (see Franz Ferdinand)). Lots of people really into the new stuff and though I think they’re best work is The Photo Album, the new stuff feels real modern and fresh. The finale of the night, the title track, Transatlantisicm, was sweeping and gorgeous. And I’m not exaggerating. The guitarist and Decemberists producer Chris Walla was strange, with his zombie look and Interpol-like-guitar-in-hand-dancing. Ben Gibbard, famous now because of the sublime Postal Service, was equally and brilliantly impressive. He sang with a ferocity over raging guitars and with quiet gentles on slower, heart-ier, tracks. Highlights: “Blacking out the Friction,” “Lightness,” “Why’d You Want to Live Here?,” “Movie Script Ending,” “Title and Regristration,” and “Transatlanticism.”

They mentioned at the end of the show that they’d be back soon. Which could mean they’re touring around the country, possibly in support or preparation of new material. New album soon, I predict. Can’t wait.

Shout-out to Danya and Val, two girls with great taste in music.