[Started writing this as soon as I got home from the concert on Saturday, April 21st, 2012] I saw them tonight at the Warfield in San Francisco. It was epic. The kind of epic that you feel about a guilty pleasure that's about to come out in the open! I don't know why they aren't bigger - I kind of expected that they would have a show at Oracle Arena or other such stadium-sized places. But no, they were in a small theater, with seats removed in the orchestra, but sectioned/marked off and separated by railings. We were at a table further back - the "accessible" section - I had no idea what I was purchasing when I got the tickets! Anyway, we got a table, which we might have had to share with others if there were others, but there weren't - well, until much later in the evening, and it's hard to know where those people came from.
Anyway, the opening acts were Now, Now and Vacationer, both of which were also good, if not great! I didn't get to see Now, Now much because I guess they started before I got in (around 8:30pm - show was supposed to start at 9pm). I liked what I heard and the little that I saw. Before I went to find my seat, I purchased some merch - a t-shirt and signed poster. I was so excited - I was talking to the cashier and people in line about how great The Naked and Famous are and how I can't believe they aren't bigger (none of my friends had heard of them!) and they were all agreeing - the couple in line especially had a story about how they saw them open for a band last year and they knew they needed to see just them! The cashier/merch clerk said that doesn't usually happen so quickly (to go from opening for someone else to being the headlining act in one year)! Yeah, I agreed - they're just so amazing!
The truth is - they are talented and their music is stylish and smart. The Naked and Famous are about to get huge because they are huge - their sound is huge! It's kind of in the creation that they will be huge! For how long is a different question...but as long as they want, I'd suppose.
They're also kiwis - from New Zealand! That's exotic and so are their accents!
Tomorrow is the 16th anniversary of my good friend, Abby,'s death. I am feeling her absence again lately. She's been in my dreams since her death - on and off - and I wonder if we would've stayed good friends if she had lived. I guess I hope so, but I guess I'll never know for sure. I guess I don't know how much I may or may not have meant to her. She has told me in my dreams that she loves me, though. She has remained a good friend in my dreams.
This first song played on the radio when I knew her in our senior year of high school - "Protection" by Massive Attack. I always wanted to be able to protect her - she was sick and undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy. I wanted to make her healthy again. Alas, I couldn't do it. I couldn't protect her.
Abby and I were both Ani Difranco fans in high school - before Ani got "big" in the lesbian, college scene. Ani Difranco was from Buffalo, NY, and we lived in Rochester, NY - only an hour east of Buffalo - so she was considered "local" at the time. In fact, it was her song, "In or Out", that I heard on the radio (80.5 WBER - "Rochester's Real Modern Rock Station", one of the only non-commercial, non-college radio stations in the country), that helped me to realize that it was ok to be bisexual (first step for me in coming out as a lesbian). Ani was a kind of heroine for us lesbians, to be honest, even though she never claimed the title - she was always adamant about saying she was "bisexual" and not a lesbian. In the end, I think she married a dude and had a kid, although I'm pretty sure she got divorced from him a few years ago. I don't know or care how she identifies anymore. She was instrumental in helping me come out at the time and thus I am grateful for her courage - and talent. Abby, too - she was open about identifying as bisexual as well. I think this album, Little Plastic Castles, may have been released after her death, but I always felt this song so strongly for her - "Pulse" by Ani Difranco.
I'd offer you my pulse
Give you my breath
Finally, this last one is also Ani - singing the age old hymn, "Amazing Grace". I believe this song came out on her "Living in Clip" album, which was an album of live performances, although this performance sounds like it was recorded in a studio. In any case, it either came out right before her death or right after it and was so poignant to me because they sang the hymn at her memorial. I felt like this version was almost meant for Abby. Therefore, I think of Abby every single time I hear it. Maybe it will be the sweet sound that saves a wretch like me...
I haven't written a post in my music blog in a bit. It's not that I haven't been listening to some wonderful, excellent, new and older music! I think, maybe, it's that I've just been finding so much and I've been so busy that I haven't really had the time to really think about it and write down those thoughts. Or, maybe, it's that I haven't really been truly struck by any single song or piece of a song enough to really write about it. Who really knows - and who really cares.
Recently, though, it has come to my attention that I pretty much love every single Death Cab for Cutie song that I hear! In fact, I think I've come to accept them as part of me - part of who I am. The only other band that I've had those feelings for is U2 - but really, just the classic U2. And more specifically, The Edge (the lead guitarist for U2 who I believe gives them their recognizable sound other than Bono's voice. But Bono's voice without The Edge doesn't sound like U2, either. It really is The Edge's melodic, atmospheric, ringing guitar that gives them their sound.) However, whereas I feel more like U2 was part of the shaping of who I've become, I feel like DCFC is more just in sync with who I am, rather than necessarily shaping me - I'm already shaped!
So I know I've already posted about a couple of DCFC songs, so maybe it's obvious how I feel about them, but here's another one, St.Peter's Cathedral:
It's another amateur original music video (not an official one - there may not be an official one).
The first time I heard this song on Pandora, I didn't click the thumbs-up icon because I read the lyrics and found myself feeling a little...well, unsure.
Ok, here's how it goes: so he's singing about the Cathedral, that it's like the architecture is basically saying how the catholics feel - that they are yearning for something, hoping for something beyond this life. In fact, as we know, they believe in heaven and hell as the places where our souls go after we die.
St. Peter's cathedral
Built of granite
Ever fearful of the answer
When the candle in the tunnel
Is flickering and sputters
And fading faster
It's only then that you will know
What lies above or down below
Or if these fictions only prove
How much you've really got to lose
At St. Peter's cathedral
There is stained glass
There's a steeple that is reaching
Up towards the heavens
Such ambition never failing to amaze me
It's either quite a master plan
Or just chemicals that help us understand
That when our hearts stop ticking
This is the end
And there's nothing past this
There's nothing past this
And then he repeats that last line for the rest of the song. Those lyrics with the music underlying...swelling and rolling, changing chords from something more positive (major chords) to more sad and diminished (non-major chords - maybe minor, maybe diminished, I don't know! Turns out, I don't have "perfect pitch") - they make me feel so much.
First, it's almost like I feel hopeful - like there's something serene about accepting that this is it, there's nothing more than this one life, this one existence. It's also a familiar, comfortable feeling because I've believed that for so long. I've always felt a little superior to those who (as I believed) erroneously "fell for" the "bullshit" dished out by the religions of the world that say otherwise. And, in a way, I almost think I can hear that same air of superiority in the song - in the lyrics - which now kinda rubs me a little the wrong way. Like it's a little hurtful or insulting. Even though I was just there - I was just in agreement with them less than a year ago!
Then, the chord changes - it's the same overlying melody for the lyrics, but a different underlying chord - and it feels sad. Cause yeah, it's sad if this really is just it - "when our hearts stop ticking this is the end". Then, when I was listening to this the other day (on repeat cause I'm like that), I thought to myself, "Oh, he just doesn't know! But it really is good news..." and then it occured to me that Bible-thumpers have that slogan about "spreading the good news", and it occured to me that, wow, I'm like a fucking Bible-thumper!
Except I'm not.
But I do think they just don't know the good news. Most people don't know the news I'd like to share - but not in a forceful way, that's completely the opposite of my purpose. My purpose is just to provide the information - then everyone else can make their own decisions, form their own opinions, figure out their own beliefs - I have no investment in anyone else believing the same shit as I do. I certainly don't expect it! And I also invite more information coming back to me...
If I could, though, I would like to give Death Cab for Cutie a big hug and say...well, actually, I'm pretty sure there is more than this.
