DCFC @ Esplanade

We didn't have the fun of making a summer pasta to take to the Death Cab For Cutie gig the way the friends did at Merriweather in June. But we saw the band!!! 
There was no Narrow Stairs banner backdrop. They had black drapes. I wanted a band tee. I had no time to grab it before the gig and the merchandise booth was closed after! Growl. The good thing about friends taking up the whole row of seats at the concert hall - I could zip up and down across them to grab photos at different angles! 
The band opened on time with "Bixby Canyon Bridge" and brought us through more than a trip down memory lane for the next 2 hours. The entire hall stood. Feel and see the power of a sold-out-within-a-day gig. The encore set had four songs. None of us knew the first song. So terrible!! One of our favorite bands and we didn't know what that first encore song was! It was probably from Something About Airplanes. We didn't hunt it down. Then it went on to "No Sunlight", "Tiny Vessels" and a rousing end to the evening with "Trasatlanticism". It was a very measured gig. Not electrifying rock. Pretty mellow. Emo even. Everybody recorded videos and cameras flashed by the second. Ben Gibbard looked almost gaunt! He lost so much weight. Goodness. Of course he did "I Will Possess Your Heart". :) 
But my attention was fixated on Chris Walla. He's arguably a superbly nimble guitarist. He only has 4 pedals. (Take that boys! 25 is passe!) He creates all those sounds with just 4 pedals. Can you beat that? The band used G & L guitars. Chris Walla used a Vox guitar for some pieces as well. Hmmmm. I don't know why but the boys picked out the TU-2 tuners used by the band. Doh! Gear! 
We were silly-billies for bringing the cd covers! (In case there was a chance to get them signed) But the autograph queue was horrendous. So we didn't bother. We were starving and needed food. The band was damn tight. Heart to heart. The evening rocked.