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Soul meets body: Death Cab for Cutie in Manila

in which it was fact, not fiction, for the first time in years.

(Film used: Kodak Gold 400 and Lomography CN 800.)

Note: This post was one of the casualties of my Great Blog Wipedown, where all of my entries from 2009-2014 vanished. Some were salvaged thanks to the Wayback Machine, but unfortunately not this. Enjoy the photos instead, I guess. (Thank you, Flickr.)

Finally, I get to somewhat write about Death Cab for Cutie. Being generally unemployed as we are, Sarie and I lined up at around 1:30 p.m. for an 8 o’clock show, and we thought that might have been too much. But when we got there, there were two other groups of people who had already been waiting there since 10 and 11 a.m. Call it crazy, but we’ve been waiting for this show for ten or so years.

A few hours into waiting, we caught part of the sound check. It was spine-tingling hearing Ben Gibbard’s voice float towards us across the room, through the glass. (A melody softly soaring through the atmosphere, hehe.) I felt my heart rise up to my throat, and it was a nice preamble to the show we were about to see. Some of the songs they played weren’t part of their set list but we didn’t know it at the time, so it was like an extra show. These were the songs they played:

  • “Different Names for the Same Thing”
  • “Meet Me on the Equinox”
  • “Death of an Interior Decorator” — this was particularly fun. Everyone we were there with sang, Can you tell me why you have been so-oh-oh-oh sa-ah-aaaaahd?
  • what we think might have been a portion of Big Star’s “Thirteen”

In the end, I wasn’t allowed to bring in my SLR—hey, a girl’s gotta try!—so it’s been a painful wait for these photos to be processed, since I took with the only other camera I had with me, an LC-A+. With only one range, four focus points, and a dark room, I’m pretty happy with the results.

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In place of my recorded memories, a setlist

Setlist:

  1. A Lack of Color
  2. I Will Possess Your Heart
  3. Crooked Teeth
  4. We Laugh Indoors
  5. Photobooth
  6. Doors Unlocked and Open
  7. Long Division
  8. Grapevine Fires
  9. Codes and Keys
  10. What Sarah Said — I do remember losing it to this song
  11. I Will Follow You Into the Dark
  12. Title and Registration
  13. You Are a Tourist
  14. The New Year
  15. Company Calls
  16. Company Calls Epilogue
  17. Soul Meets Body
  18. Cath…
  19. We Looked Like Giants
  20. The Sound of Settling

Encore:

  1. Home Is a Fire
  2. Meet Me on the Equinox
  3. A Movie Script Ending
  4. Transatlanticism — amazing last song, I’ll tell you that