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Van Male Fieldhouse
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So obviously with my dissertation in progress and an impending move, my enthusiasm for the podcast has waned. I've been sitting on the clips from this show for about a month and a half, and finally got on them because I got a new computer that I wanted to put through its paces. Also, I shot these clips on my old camera (though upon arrival at the show I realized I probably could've got my bulkier new equipment in with no fuss), which I find super-annoying now. How did I ever use that thing to shoot video for so long?
But, the show itself. I never saw any direct evidence, but I assume this show was set up by some student activities committee at Carroll College, because the school's fieldhouse was a very odd place for it to be. First of all, Waukesha turns out to be a much more strangely laid-out city than I ever realized. Getting from the freeway to the show -- with iPhone in hand, luckily -- was an absolute maze of twists, off-shoots and sudden one-way streets. And secondly, wouldn't the Rave or the Dane County Coliseum have made more sense for a southern Wisconsin show? At least as campus shows go, the sound was generally decent on the technical side (though the building's acoustics were not optimal).
But beyond that, this was a show that I wouldn't have gone to a year ago, but which, after Narrow Stairs, I was quite excited for. Death Cab's major-label debut -- from which this song is taken -- sounded very major-label-debut-y to me and I lost a lot of confidence in the band after it. Then I heard that the lead single from their follow-up would have a five-minute instrumental intro and thought, oh, terrific, they're going "mature." Instead, they produced something complex and experimental, which is easily the best record they've ever made (I never got around to writing up my top albums of 2008, but I've got it at #4 on that list). On top of that, they probably won't be playing within 45 minutes of us again any time soon.
Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2009:06:04:08:00