Death Cab For Cutie @ SCU - $34

The pair of Warfield shows Death Cab' played in San Francisco sold out pretty quickly, but what bummed me more was how I didn't get no heads up on a show at my alma mater till much later, when all floor tickets were sold out. They were only $15 for students, Ticketmaster raped me on that one at the rate of $33.75 per. Anyway, I was actually quite happy to check out what probably will be my last concert for the year, Death Cab For Cutie at the Leavey Event Center (mostly basketball) at Santa Clara University

I went there straight from work and arrived over an hour before Stars was set to open at 8p. They had a line for students and one for "regular people" to add insult to injury (it really wasn't so bad). I felt pretty out of place and a bit old with all the teens attending the concert. Some were not even in college. While in line, I saw these 2 chicks from Chinese class so long ago, couldn't find em inside. I had thought about sneaking down to the floor but they actually had security check thoroughly for issued bracelets. I tried to find some good seats on the left side of the stage, technically closer than the elevated right side

Stars played a lot of familiar tunes from Set Yourself On Fire, the sound was so bad it made it impossible to enjoy. Truth be told, I was too distracted by the number of people on stage (singer, 2 guitarists, bassist, violinist, drummer and keyboardist). They kept giving shout outs to their native Canada. There was supposdely some dj (Thomas Morr) but he was utterly forgettable

Death Cab' took the stage around 9 and played a great set which covered basically all of my favorite songs from Plans and Transatlanticism, there were a few songs I've never heard, a couple of which were real good

The singer actually had his mic set right behind a pole that was smack in the middle of my view, I later moved to the back center and eventually even made it down to the floor for the encore

While the rhythm section was on point, I though frontman Ben Gibbard was pretty impressive, his voice came on very clearly (and proved how much Stars' sound setup sucked ass). He moved effortlessly from guitar to keyboards and gave off some good energy. The problem is that he moves so much while he plays that it's hard to get a good shot of him

I think the other genius of the band might be guitarist Chris Walla, his awesomeness came thru during several songs, especially "Transatlanticism"

I haven't found a set list proper but this one from the Warfield seems close
Marching Bands of Manhattan tight concert opener
The New Year coulda worked well also as opener
Why You'd Want to Live Here
Title & Registration still one of my favorites
Soul Meets Body came on fairly early
Summer Skin
President of What
Photobooth
Crooked Teeth
Different Names for the Same Thing
Movie Script Ending
Company Calls
What Sarah Said
Expo 86
We Looked Like Giants
Sound of Settling
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I Will Follow You Into the Dark Ben solo acoustic
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism the way this song ends is so powerful, for this tour Stars has been showin up to sing along on this song, I'm glad they didn't