Wednesday, Sal and I (and about 8 friends and most of the people I went to high-school with) went to see the Death Cab For Cutie and Postal Service touring on the 20 year anniversary of the albums I listened to in college. (God, time is marching too quickly forward)
Ben Gibbard is the commonality between the bands, because he is the lead singer for both. He's been in Death Cab since like 1997 and The Postal Service since like 2001.
There are certain albums that bring me back to a very specific time and place.
Target used to put all of the new CDs out for $7.99 on Thursdays before going back up to the normal price. So every Thursday, I'd drive to Target after school, buy whatever new CDs there were, even if I didn't now the artist, and give them a listen. This is how in October 2003, I ended up with Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism.
It didn't hit initially for me. Was a little too sad, too mellow. But I have this very distinct memory of driving Greens Bottom Road late at night, listening to the CD with my windows down in sprint of 2003.
I was having one of those touchstone life crisis's everyone goes through. I somehow slipped through the hands of guidance counselors and had no idea I was supposed to apply for colleges the summer before Senior year. So I found myself in a situation where I was stuck in a place I didn't like, while my friends were all headed off to college or the military."What the hell am I going to do with my life? I can't work at a fast casual place forever. I don't want to be in the St. Charles area anymore. I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have a passion that pays."
This was the soundtrack to me deciding to just apply to Mizzou, show up, and figure it out there. I needed to get out on my own. Maybe I came back to work at Nothing but Noodles someday, but I wanted to at least see what it was like.
I went to community college for a year, got financing in order, got accepted to Mizzou, and by late Summer 2004, I was headed out on my own.
My next memory of this specific Death Cab album is shortly after Sal and I started dating. We were driving around Columbia in my Malibu, listening to music. "The Sound of Settling" came on. Ben Gibbard is in my vocal range. (That is before I wrecked my voice in my 9-5) I started singing along and Sal turned to me and said, "Wow, you can actually sing. Most people that say they can sing, can't. They aren't good." It's a compliment I've obviously carried to today.
Death Cab's Next album Plans would immediately hit for me, being the soundtrack of my summer.
Now, let's fast forward a few years. Like I said before, I wasn't into Indie/Emo music in 2003. (I would be very shortly), so the Postal Service was not on my radar until 2005ish. This is a super group consisting of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab), Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley), and DJ Dntel.
I used to drive up to Kirksville about once a month to visit my friends Allie and Lauren. I would bring the newest in punk and screamo and they would pass off the newest indie band I should hear. Was a great North to South music exchange program we had.
One time, they gave me a burned CD that merely said, "The Postal Service" on it and told me I had to hear it. (Band got their name because they mostly produced their fist album by sending recordings via the mail.)
Now, when I was in my early 20s, sleep meant nothing. There were times where I would drive the 90 minutes north to Kirksville on Friday afternoon, have dinner, hang out for a couple hours, and then drive back at midnight to get to my morning restaurant shift on time. Highway 63, South to North, at Midnight, is one of the darkest highways I've ever driven on. Macon and Moberly are the only small signs of life. The rest of the drive is dark, there's no cars on the road, and it can be a little creepy.
I left my friends' apartment, popped the CD in, and started driving. Postal Service did not land on my first listen. My first thought was, "What's this Nintendo ass sounding music?" But soon I was driving through Macon, the CD was starting over, and I didn't change it.
Again, CD ended, restarted immediately. I didn't change it again.
I got to Moberly, by now I'm singing Such Great Heights at the top of my lungs.
By the time I got to Columbia, I was a fan.
The Postal Service had already gone on a hiatus by 2005, all artists involved with their own projects. They were a band I never thought I'd get to see live. And I'm incredibly happy that I was finally able to make it happen on the 20th anniversary.
Both bands were fantastic. The stage setup was this awesome symphony of lights and lasers silhouetting the band. Everyone in the crowd was a 30 something bald guy with a beard and women that still had the stains of dark eyeliner from the early 2000s. We were all singing along.
There were times where I was so overcome with emotion, I was just frozen. Trying to take it in as much as I could, much like I imagine an athlete entering the stadium for the last time. It one of the first times in recent memory where I wasn't thinking about having to wake up the next morning for work and hoping the show was done by 11. I would've been perfectly happy to hear them play both albums again.
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