This weekend was unbelievable.  I'm exhausted, but I mostly blame my dad for that, whe decided to get me out of bed last night to come see "one picture" of him in a fighter plane in Vietnam.  One picture turned into Kim's well-documented childhood and much more.  But for the rest of the weekend:

Saturday's concert was unbelievable.  I love The Head and The Heart.  So when Death Cab's concert was announced and that TH&TH were opening for them, I got a prompt text from Theresa, "Should I buy tickets?"  My answer was, "of course," of course.  It blew my mind.  I've never been to a concert where I was going more for the opener than the headliner, it was a bit odd.  (Granted, I was also really excited about Death Cab.)  And they both lived up to everything I could have hoped for and a dozen times more.  The Head & The Heart were all that we love about folk, they poured out EVERYTHING into their music before our eyes.  I love the power of folk music, how it's stripped down and yet overcoming.  You could understand every word as it tore through the air at you, and then ripped you apart.  Each song was my favorite, until the last. 

Charity Rose (who'd already made me pledge to start practicing my violin better), absolutely stole the night as screamed out "rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers 'til I meet you" in something I could only call desperation and hope. Truly, if hope had a sound, it would have been that. It was rough and cutting and lovely all at the same time. I watched them and I think began to grasp why musicians are so in love with what they do and how they could become addicted to performing. For an hour, two hours, or a 15 minute set musicians get to live life with everything in them, spending themselves on a stage of passion, dedication, talent and the culmination of hundreds of unseen hours of practice. It's dedication. It's a clearer example than we usually see, and a simpler one. The question I walked away with was, how could I live my life like that? And I don't really know, but there is certainly a greater passion we could all be living with, a way to spend ourselves that we rarely consider. 

Death Cab for Cutie was next up, and they were UNBELIEVABLE.  You could see why they'd brought on TH&TH, their personalities on stage and their strong lyrical work melded nicely, but then, it was rock, it was amps and thrown guitars and drum duos and long sweaty hair, light shows and smoke.  It was brilliant.  Ben Gibbard showed off unbelievable talent, ranging from one instrument to another.  When he finally unleashed on the drums, the arena was in awe.  And of course for his versatility to be displayed, other band members had to move from instrument to instrument as well, the other guitarist often swinging over to piano and back. The four band members put on a high-energy 2+ hour set, making sure we all got more than a good return on our ticket price.  

It was an unbelievable evening, and if we weren't both so tired, we'd probably have kept it going. Instead, we sat in the traffic and talked about "next time" and how we'd live it up. Love you T, thank you so much for thinking of me, for grabbing the tickets, and for sharing the evening with me. Oh, yes, and for always putting up with my shananigans and photo-taking. ;)