One of the best things about music is how when it’s good you can lose yourself in it completely. But what’s equally good if not better is when the opposite happens. Not that you find yourself, per se, because that would be pretentious nonsense – but rather when you hear it and parts of you that you’d forgotten could be moved stir and shift and stretch and grow and you’re welling up with it and it’s beautiful. And that sounds like pretentious nonsense too, but I can’t help it.
I went to see Death Cab For Cutie at the Astoria last night and it was that kind of night. Ben and the gang make beautiful, clever music, but I had forgotten the power it packs when they play it live. Lush and layered guitars give way to intricate jazz-inspired rhythms and then spiral back up into a joy that makes your heart hurt. You find yourself grinning like an idiot and your eyes are full of tears and you’re so inside the moment that when it’s over you realize you’d lost all sense of time.
See, I’ve been trying to write about the show off and on since I got home last night and all I keep coming up with is this rubbish. So I’ll just say it was beautiful and fantastic and you should have been there and I’ll leave it at that. Hie thee to the gig the next time they’re in your town. You won’t regret it.
And to the band (on the very very off chance you’re reading this): thanks, guys. You made my whole week.
*Mr. Vonnegut has been known to say, “the only proof of the existence of God is music.”