Death Cab for Cutie

A few observations from last night's Death Cab for Cutie show at the Key Arena in Seattle: 1. The band is good, even when seen in a pretty large venue. Go see them if you like their music and have the opportunity. 2. Concerts today are not like how they were twenty years ago. As far as we could tell, there wasn't any smoking, drinking, or some such craziness like there would have been fifteen years ago at a show like this one. Not sure if it was the band or what but many thousands of really well behaved high school and college kids comprised the crowd. Kind of nice but also a little disconcerting. Come to think of it, what societal norms and cultural taboos do teenagers today rebel against? Or is the whole concept of teenage rebellion so last century? 3. Cell phones aren't just for calling people. During the slower songs in the set, hundreds of people held up their phones, illuminated the screens and waved them back and forth. Cell phones have replaced lighters at rock shows evidently. What's more, anyone with a phone was taking pictures of the scene, the band, etc. I can only imagine how many of the images and videos are today part of thousands of Seattle-area teenagers' MySpace pages and posted up on YouTube. If I were Death Cab or any other band for that matter, I'd do whatever I could to get members of the audience to take whatever video, audio, and images they want and share them with all to see. Unbelievably powerful (and cheap!) promotion... To wit, here's a video from an earlier Death Cab show shot on someone's cell phone: Wild, wacky stuff...