Thievery Corp, Death Cab for Cutie

Staying out late on school/work nights is what separates the cool from the not. If you just wait until Friday night, Saturday night, or a night before some random holiday to do anything fun, you're lame.

To show you how cool I am, I went out on both Sunday night and Monday night! It also helps if you have random bouts of insomnia, and the alternative is staying up late praying that sleep comes your way.

It started Sunday with Thievery Corp with Los Amigos Invisibles at the Hollywood bowl. I can't even pretend that I really know anything about either of those bands, other than the fact that my stoner friends love it and the air had a bit of the smell of a joint being passed around, but to say you had to be stoned to enjoy it would be a lie, the music from both the openers and headliner are good enough to be enjoyed without any such illicit substances.

Los Amigos Invisibles did a great job of warming up the crowd with its highly energetic, otherworldly funk/jazz/disco sounds that I'll incompetently try to explain with this short paragraph that is actually a big run on sentence. Their sound was so lively and fun that it felt like no time until the sun was finally set on this luxuriously overlong summer daylight, and then the stage literally spun around and up was Thievery Corp.

It started out with just two dj's up there, and before we knew it there was random guest star after random guest star an suddenly a vocalist, drummer, and full band all nuanced by the outstanding stage lights and welcome addition of a competent sound engineer that must have been truant from REM's show the month before.

I started out knowing nothing more about Thievery Corp other than that one of my friends at work is a huge fan and they had a popular song on the Garden State soundtrack, but obviously that is half the point I'm going to all these concerts - to learn about random bands outside my level of comfort. What I saw was an eclectic performance of what felt like an electronica band that had ventured around the world several times, finding a comfortable home at many points all over the globe, and then deciding to share all of its outerworldly wisdom with us through their sound. The whole night left me feeling excited, relaxed, and somehow more cultured and I went home very happy, but still excited for the following night.

Next up on Monday was Death Cab for Cutie, opened by Rogue Wave at the Nokia Live in downtown. What really struck me first was this new venue I hadn't experienced. Right next to the Staples Center, the building had an almost exciting street-prescence with all of its decorative lights out in front that would almost deceive you to the fact that the building is 100% utilitarian. There is not an ounce of excitement or anything of interest to the architecture of this venue, it is about as drab and stale and corporate feeling as you can get, right down to its lame display of cell phones that not a single concert goer has any interest in looking at while out to see a show.

This isn't really all a bad thing, because when I said it was utilitarian, it pulls that off quite well - the seats were of serviceable comfort and every seat out there seemed to have a decent view of the stage, and the acoustic engineering was quite well done.

Hearing Rogue Wave and then Death Cab was a great experience too, and as with the previous night I hardly knew anything about either band before. One thing was for sure, as the almost surfer-looking type walking in I was badly out of uniform by not being pale, anemic, skinny, and with pair of jeans more than 2 sizes too small and some sort of ironic t-shirt. I was almost afraid of not being hipster enough to be even allowed into the venue based on the crowd I was a part of. Somehow I still made it in and loved the show. I may not look the part, but I now love both of these bands. Both were great, Rogue Wave had their gentle, accessible indie sound that was a bit more familiar to me. Then Death Cab for Cutie won me over with its intimately melancholy sound that cries of some sort of bittersweet reflection that begged me to go and get all their albums and give it a more thorough chance.

It is surprising that I'd gone so long without really giving them a shot as my music library is full of Death Cab's neighboring-sounding bands such as The Shins, the opening band Rogue Wave, Built to Spill, Dntel... and many others that I felt were quite similar and liked by me - but that is obviously the whole point I'm going to shows like this. Death Cab might not have been the most animated up on stage, but they sounded so clean and the singer's voice was so lofty and smooth to listen too that they didn't need to rely on any such antics.

And now I'm giving Los Angeles a break, I'll be out of civilization for about two weeks. I'll pretend that there are actually people that read this and say goodbye for now.

When I'm back, if my knee allows me to I'll be at Coldplay's show at The Forum on 7/14 - or if not expect a lengthy and bitchy post complaining about me and my poor torn ACL that prevented me from experiencing another concert and chance to hang out with fun people.