Franztastic and Deathalicious!

Last night I went to see Death Cab For Cutie and Franz Ferdinand in concert. The show was F(*KING AWESOME!

The night started with me meeting up with my good friend Norm and his friend Ameen (If you ever read this, sorry for the spelling!) at McGill. Marina was supposed to meet us there as well but she kept calling me and telling me she STILL hasn't left her house, so we arranged to meet at the venue, the CEPSUM (U de M auditorium) instead. Norm drives Ameen and I to the school and we find parking. We then walk to the nearest map and realize we are at the wrong end of the street and agreed it was too far to walk. So, back in the car we went and drove down the street only to find no place to park, turning around and parking back in the EXACT same spot as before, and then walking to the entrance. Shortly after, Mariana finally met us and confessed that she was late because she couldn't decide what to wear for the plans she had after the show (you're SUCH a terrible friend Mariana, haha). Then my buddies Mike, Alex and Jason showed up and the circle was complete...

...Only to be broken up once we got inside because and co wanted to relax and sit down in the bleacher seats (the venue was a skating rink) while the rest of us wanted to stand amongst the rest of the crowd.

The standing area filled up pretty fast and by far my favorite moment of the night was when Norm screamed out all of a sudden "FUCK YOU PSYCHO BITCH!!!". Norm had just broken up with his girlfriend. I think everyone in the whole place stopped talking when they heard that. That then became our call if we got lost in the show.

Eventually the lights turned off and the opening band, The Cribs came on stage. I had never heard of them but after a quick intro of something like "Yo we're The Cribs from England" (the acoustics for vocals were not very good for a rock concert...) they just started to rock HARD. Being just a trio, the guitarist and bassist started belting out lyrics in harmony and thrashing while the drummer went nuts and at one point even stood on his drums while continuing to drum. It was a GREAT start and really enjoyed their opening song until I found out that ALL their songs sounded the same and they did the same schenanigans during each song.

After their set, I was dying to go the bathroom and to hydrate myself so I took a chance and squeezed through the crowd towards the washroom. On the way there, there was a line of people moving in one direction and found it odd that there was a girl with crutches and two people behind her was a guy with crutches. What are the odds of that? Then it turned out the guy was Dave Kolin whom I studied chemistry with! Turns out he broke his leg skiing. OUCH!

Up the stairs, there's a huge line to the toilets and there was a guard letting women into the men's room which was now a "Unisex Bathroom". Inside, there is this long line of men and women bending around a wall. I peer around the wall and see there are no guys at the urinals. "Screw this" I thought to myself and used one of the urinals while hot chicks kept passing me to use the stalls.

Back on the floor, I searched and located my friends (thank God Mariana is tall!). I walked along the outskirts of the crowd until I was lined up with my friends and attempted to push my way through. A giant challenge it was indeed because some people thought I was being such a jerk trying to push my way through that they were being JERKS SQUARED! Some just REFUSED to budge even an inch. I was about 5 people behind my friends when every single person around me joined together and said to each other "We shall not let Joshua Bateman pass through!". I started to scream out Mariana's name and she just couldn't hear me. My phone started to ring. I pick it up and it's Mike, watching me from the bleachers and he says "looks like you're having some trouble, eh? Hahaha". Feeling totally discouraged, my hopes came up when finally Mariana happened to turn around and with her armed stretch out, brought me in to the sacred land known as my circle of friends.

And then Death Cab For Cutie marched on stage. The stage had two 7 feet tall white square houses with windows and a back drop of white trees. Their set was amazing. I thought it would be really melow judging from their music but they really rocked on stage. All the musicians were really into it. The coolest thing was during the set, they started to swap instruments or play two at once. For the final song, the groupies set up a miniature drum set and the singer jumped to it and started to do a drum solo with the drummer! For the finale, the bassist climbed to the top of an amp and simultaneously jumped off and hit a note on his bass as the singer smashed his guitar on the stage! Totally not something I expected from that group!

The lights were back on and it was the last intermission before the big guns. This time Mariana chanced it and took a trip to the bathroom. Meanwhile the floor was starting to really get cramped and I literally couldn't even turn around anymore. The show was going to start any minute and Mariana came into view but couldn't get past the wall of jerks. I then put myself on a possible suicide mission, said my goodbyes to Norm and Ameen and jumped back into the crowd to reach Mariana. Seconds later the lights turned off and the band had reached the stage. Without a thought, people started to rush the stage and Mariana and I followed. The band started rocking out immediately and the crowd went wild! While during the first two groups everyone kind of stood in place bobbing their heads, now everyone was just dancing, jumping and plain out going crazy. I immediately got into this trance and totally let myself go to the music. I just let the crowd direct me where to go. I ended up bumping into Ameen followed by Norm and next thins I know it, I'm at the FRONT of the stage! I remained there the rest of the show, listening to amazing Franz Ferdinand tunes like "Take Me Out, Do You Want To, and Matinee". They were BANG ON the whole time.

For their encore, they played the song Michael which Norm was really hoping they would. While jumping up and down with Norm, all of a sudden an arm wrapped around my shoulders and some guy starts to sing with me. It ended up being Surjit! A really cool guy I met at McGill through all my FROSH involvement. What a crazy way to catch up with a long time friend!

For the final song, there ended up being 3 people playing the drums while the other musicians just went nuts and with a heartbeat it was all over.

We then made our way to the T-shirt stand where I bought a wicked Death Cab for Cutie shirt for only 25$, although Norm was screaming at me from across the way to buy a girl shirt.

Exhausted, we said our goodbyes, made to Norms car, went for a bite to eat and Norm drove me home.

In conclusion, I had an AWESOME night seeing an AWESOME set of bands with AWESOME friends! That was definitely one of the best shows I had ever been too.