I got back from an amazing weekend in Seattle on Sunday. My first night in town I went to a screening of The Postal Service movie Everything Will Change and it made me wish I'd seen them more than just twice on last year's anniversary tour. The next day was mostly spent waiting in line to see Ben Gibbard play a solo show at the Neptune. And trying to keep warm; the weather was remarkably clear but chilly for my unacclimated SoCal self. But it was worth it to be up front! Eric Anderson of Cataldo opened and totally won me over with his stage banter and songs. Of course nothing outshines Gibbard and even though he didn't play any of the songs I was hoping for he was still wonderful. Unfortunately the batteries in my recorder died halfway through the show. This is always devastating to me and has in fact been a feature of my nightmares prior to gigs. I even had an extra set with me, but I neglected to check on the damn thing periodically. So no recordings of the Alvvays cover, the tear-jerking "What Sarah Said", &c... I did get video of "Carolina" though, so at least there's that. There was some banter about Mark Kozelek's abrasive stage antics which only a few people laughed at (actually it was quite possibly just me and one or two other people) and Ben said it was probably for the best that no one got that. Wish I could better remember the context of that, but it happened during the unrecorded portion of the show. He did mention that Death Cab will be touring next year which is super exciting. Although it'll be weird seeing them without Chris Walla. Well, line-ups change all the time. It's the ones that remain static that are anomalies. Oh, I got one of two setlists, despite the kid next to me trying to grab it out of my hand. He also tried to rip the other setlist out of someone else's hand. Some folks seriously need lessons in etiquette. To round out the trip the next morning before I left I went to Smith Tower and listened to "Teardrop Windows" a few times. I really wish I'd seen the show Ben played there in 2012. It must've been spectacular.
I didn't get approved to cover the show for The Owl, but I took pictures anyway. Hopefully I get to cover Death Cab sometime next year. I did get to shoot We Were Promised Jetpacks + The Twilight Sad and The War on Drugs recently though.