And THIS Is Why : Rogue Wave/Death Cab For Cutie

If you notice in most of my postings I am never too far from the band....maybe the Old 97's was the furthest away I have been at a show - but as I put in that posting, The Crash Mansion blows and the only way to get any ventilation was to stand so far in the back I thought the lead singer looked like Kevin Bacon.


Well last night I went to the Nokia Theatre for my first time. The theatre was one big corporate sponsorship. With venues named like The Home Depot Center, Staples Center, Gibson Amphitheatre and Nokia Theatre - I guess what else would you expect? There was a whole display case of all the phones Nokia has to offer (but it's behind glass as if too precious to let consumers check it out). Signage with Target logo's, HD monitor companies, Lexus...you name it. But I am off topic. I'm not used to going to such large venues where you can get lost in it and where you can be so far up in the seats that you might as well be in a different area code.
I love going to shows at The Echo, The Troubadour, The Echoplex, Spaceland - etc. Small venues where I can see the band and be at ease without security lurking over my head.

We had tickets to see Rogue Wave and Death Cab For Cutie at the Nokia Theatre. Cool. Should be a good show with both bands having new great albums out. We get there and through the maze and multiple escalator levels we arrive at our seats in the mezzanine. Wow. We were so high up I have no idea what the bands even look like...nor could we hear the bands. The speakers are all up near the stage, so if you are that high up you get the echo of what the band is playing and no sound. And THIS is why I go to smaller venues.


And while the lighting engineer put on a great show, those of us in the nose bleed section just got the bright glare in our eyes. I had to put my sunglasses on in order to take in the show.

Was it a good show though? Yeah - I guess? Rogue Wave was awesome and Death Cab was adored by the crowd. Don't get me wrong. I am so thrilled for bands to make it to bigger venues, bigger audiences, bigger profits - but I personally love the intimacy of small shows, which is why I love the bands when they are lesser known so I can enjoy them in my own private space.

A little trivia about the origin of Death Cab's name: As some Beatles fans know, there was a "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy in the mid sixties, in which the Beatles allegedly replacing Paul with an impostor that had won a Paul look-a-like contest. Anyway, according to the conspiracy theory, the Beatles would give the true fans all kinds of lyrical (and otherwise) hints and clues. "Death Cab For Cutie" was a song performed in Magical Mystery Tour as one of these hints, in that Paul was "the cute one". And that the night he died, he was in a car accident outside London with a cab. A long way to go, but interesting nonetheless.