Friday night at the Showbox

If you’re familiar with Death Cab for Cutie, then you probably know that they have a song called “Song for Kelly Huckaby” on the Forbidden Love EP; Kelly Huckaby is my cousin. I don’t just mean that his name happens to be the same as the guy in the song title, I mean that he is Kelly Huckaby. He’s about six years older than me, and when he was in college he lived down the street from Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla and became good friends with them. Obviously you see what possibilities this connection sparked in my whirring mind. My sister had told me he would be at the show, so I figured that if I could find him in the crowd he could get me backstage – and I wouldn’t just be some gushing fan back there, like the drunk girl in front of Marta and I who somehow had a backstage pass; the fact that I was their good friend’s cousin would somehow legitimize my presence in the eyes of the band members, to the point where I could become their best friend and attend their birthday parties. These were my frantic hopes as venue slowly filled up.

My task turned out to be a good deal harder than I originally thought. I’m not sure if Kelly was hanging out backstage early in the evening or what, but he was a difficult man to locate. I wasn’t aided by the fact that I hadn’t seen him in almost five years, my memory of his face being consequently hazy. I tugged Marta around through the crowd on the prowl for him, occasionally stopping with a gasp when someone who might have been, but ultimately was not, my cousin loomed into the orange light. By the time the opening act for the opening act came on, I’d given up hope.

The band above was called The Catch, and was made of four girls – an unmistakable gimmick. I don’t mean to say that all-girl bands are intrinsically worthless, but when they’re assembled as such as a marketing tactic that tends to be the case. These girls weren’t bad, per se, they just weren’t very good. They all wore miniskirts and cute tops, and sported variations on the same theme of hairstyle. The lead singer was at least five years older than the other members, reinforcing my idea that they were manufactured. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trying to look like Courtney Love and sound like the singer from Sleater Kinney.

Next up came Nada Surf, who it turns out hasn’t broken up after all – they just put out an album on Barsuk, Death Cab’s label, as a matter of fact. Marta and I both really enjoyed their set and are thinking about picking up said album, and a number of people in the crowd appeared to be there primarily for Nada Surf, rather than Death Cab. Who knew.

Through diligence, patience, and the occasional elbow, Marta and I wormed our way to the third row from the stage to take in Death Cab’s exceptional live act. Chris Baker yesterday complained that Death Cab has changed recently, that the laid-back attitude which guided their earlier live performances is largely gone today, and I agree to a large extent; I definitely thought last February’s show was a superior display of showmanship. But that’s not to say Friday’s performance wasn’t up to snuff – if anything, it was like four miles above snuff – but I definitely noticed what he was talking about. The bassist, Nick Harmer, was especially excitable, and hammered away with such passion that I thought he would break his neck. But they opened with “Title Track” – my new cell phone ring – which made my heart leap for joy, especially since I’ve never heard it live before period. The show was epic, my only complaint being that they didn’t play enough from their old albums in order to cram in almost every song from Transatlanticism – I like their new stuff, but not as much as the old. Maybe that makes me a real fan. And – I swear I’m not making this up – Ben Gibbard looked right at me several times, straight into my beaming, adoring face. I want to have his babies.

The band ended on “Prove my Hypothesis”, drawing out the final notes for some on-stage antics: Ben thrashed around madly with his guitar; Nick writhed on the ground as if in either ecstasy or great pain; Chris climbed the amps like a staircase until he was a good ten feet off the ground, then wound each string of his guitar until it snapped. Then they all came down together for the final note in a bounce of rockingness. And get this: they covered “Free Falling” by Tom Petty. Afterwards, Nick said that they often got made fun of for that by kids saying “Tom Petty sucks”, and that Ben always rejoined with “when you diss Tom Petty, you diss yourself”; he told everyone who didn’t sing along during the chorus that they “needed to graduate from Too Cool School”.

Afterwards I saw Nick standing by the entrance to backstage, and I shook his hand and told him it was a good show. Then I added, “Is Kelly Huckaby around?” hoping he’d draw me backstage to find him. Instead he said, “Hold on, I’ll go get him,” and sent him out. Kelly and I talked for a bit about how he’d come to befriend the band and so on, but I couldn’t think of a graceful way to ask him to take me and Marta to meet them, so I didn’t. It was at least good seeing him again.

Last night I went to another concert, albeit not a real one. Dash and Jared have formed a new band, and they played at a house party on 65th. Like most garage bands, the guitar noise completely drowned out the vocals, but they were still very decent. And everyone I knew from the dorms was there; I haven’t seen all those people in one room in over two years. It was a lot of fun. Their bassist, whose name I forget, actually recognized me from the paper: “Oh you’re the Zach Musgrave.” I went all red and mumbled some thanks at his compliments; I’m still adjusting to my tiny amount of fame.

I haven’t done anything school-related since Thursday, so I have my work cut out for me the rest of the afternoon and evening. Sigh. Apparently even forced sobriety can’t entirely defeat the imp of procrastination.