Comments on The Blacklight Kid at Neil Young
Death Cab's set was disappointing to say the least. By a mix of new and old songs, this kid meant to say, they only played their singles from (mostly) the last two albums, and two of their singles (The New Year and Sound of Settling) from Transatlanticism. I have to say after 6 years and probably over a dozen times seeing Death Cab live, their live show has gone significantly and consistantly down hill. The energy that was once there just really isn't present anymore, and even my dad pointed out at this show that it looks like a one man band. I'm wondering if they played it safe with the set at this show, as the crowd was a bunch of old fuckers, but for a long time fan it was disappointing. All bitching aside, I didn't go for Death Cab anyways, Neil Young and his 62 year old fingers rocked the shit out of that arena. I thought the "Day In the Life" encore was perfect.
I like the "never-ending ending".
Isn't Tom Cruise in that?
Well, it was my first time seeing both Neil and Death Cab. Neil was amazing, as has been well documented. Death Cab I thought was damn good, but I don't have a dozen past shows to comare with... thought they were extremely tight and polished, showed pretty good energy (I'd heard they were far less animated even that what I saw). Almost made me want to go out and get a striped sweater and tight pants, and join an indie rock band.
The hometown (sort of) crowd was impressively attentive to their set. Gotta be good exposure for DC, playing for all the gray hairs out there.
I thought Death Cab was awesome (or as awesome as you can be in a giant, cold cement box). I never really appreciated them until I saw them live. Now, six times later I can attest to the fact that they are an excellent band. They always sound good and do a good job of playing the hits and other stuff.
Wow- who was running sound for Death cab? it was almost unlistenable...just kickdrum and a little bass. seriously, sounded like a 12 year old jugalo was fucking around with their EQ while listening to a 3rd generation cassette of Rick Springfield.
Neil's sound was fine, so i know it wasn't the space.
@5:
the sound for the other opener, everest, was even worse. at the very least, the vocals were pretty well dialed in for all of the acts; but both everest and death cab really had some poor mixing.
aside: neil young's guitar treatment on the second song was unbelievable; it sounded like every note was going to blow his amp to bits. for someone of his age to have such an amazingly violent guitar sound is almost like magic - i don't think there is any new pedal that can duplicate that sound. whoa.
@6: Durham Crazy Horse pedal will get you pretty close. Check it out!