Life & Some Verses: Death in Munich

"I descended a dusty gravel ridge beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge,

and soon I eventually arrived to the place where your soul had died...

Barefoot in the shallow creek I grabbed some stones from underneath waiting for you to speak to me...

And the silence, it became so very clear, that you had long ago disappeared.

And I cursed myself for being surprised that this didn't play like it did in my mind..."

I have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and it finally came to pass that I was standing 10 feet from a stage where one of my most revered bands, Death Cab for Cutie, stood poised to play. The lyrics to "Bixby Canyon Bridge" came streaming through the microphone, my heart leaped, and the reality of being just an ear shot away from the poet himself, Ben Gibbard, made me surge with that elation that only comes with experiencing a song your heart resonates with, not through headphones or speakers, but live.

After a long journey, first an hour and a half bus ride from Strakonice to Prague, two hours wandering downtown Prague, drinking coffee, a gingerbread latter to be exact, to wake me up, and then a car ride with Lucka, Nate, and Hannah from Prague to Munich, we arrived. We got lost, we asked for directions, we found the venue, we waited for parking, gave up, drove a ways a way, found a spot, and got out into the freezing winter air. After a dinner at Pizza hut (yeah, I know, not my first choice and blatantly American) we walked, chilled to the bone back to the venue, an awesome place tucked away off a main street in the center of the city, and got in line to enter. We made friends with fellow Americans braving life in Europe, stood, waited, chatted over the sounds of all the Europeans combined, and shivered as our toes felt the bite of the bellow zero temperature. Small sacrifices for the chance to experience music through a torn veil, face to face, feeling the sound surround you, the bass beat in your chest. All our excitement grew in contrast to our comfort as the time drew closer to the time for the doors to open.

We enter, rush to the front. We want to smell the music, taste it, have it touch us. The opening band, Frightened Rabbit impresses and entertains, their quirky drummer mostly to deserve credit for this. Despite the frequent application of expletives, I must confess my favorite song of theirs was one entitled "Keep Yourself Warm". Though said in the most crude way possible, the song rings with truth. Paired with a powerful and dynamic melody, this song deserves attention. This was my first experience with this band, not my last. I'll take their Scottish accents and provocatively poetic lyrics for a spin again and again. The best is yet to come though...

The openers finish, walk off quickly, and as the stage is prepared we wait eagerly. I know that my expectations are much too weak to prepare me adequately. I can't believe I am here. What an unlikely memory to make. Life feels beautifully strange, as it frequently does here.

I don't think I can describe what happens in between. I have heard these songs so many times, but somehow I feel like I am just hearing them for the first time again. The audience as a chorus, singing back the words to the stage. I have always thought that this must be one of the most rewarding feelings for an artist. Somehow they have written a song so specific that it pricks the hearts like a needle and yet so big that hundreds of people can simultaneously connect with it. The set list is long, most of my favorites included: "Grapevine Fires", "Transatlanticism", "Title and Registration", "Your Heart is an Empty Room". Some new ones to savor: "405", "Movie Script Ending", "Laughing Indoors". I have already added them to my collection. I wish he would tell the stories behind these songs, but they are stories in themselves, they stand alone. I am curious though still. The acoustic stillness of "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". A four song encore. I can be satisfied with this.

We drive home. I am tired, I start to doze, drifting in and out, a sermon playing in the background, then music, Hillsong United, Bon Iver...I lose track. Snow is falling outside, its cold, its still, it seems like a dream, a winter lullaby. Everything is poetic in these moments. My ears can't stop ringing from the words sung tonight. I swear that man is a genius at expressing the human soul. Sometimes I feel like he ripped pages form my journal and put music to them. Or is it the other way around? I often feel like I have inadequate words to express myself, or maybe that I don't even know what it really is that I long to tell the story of, but when I hear songs like those of Death Cab I feel like a script is added to the film of memories in my mind. The words don't always match up to the moving lips, but the emotion is all there. Maybe those words are what I wish I could say. If I could write a letter to you I would send a playlist with it to fill in the wholes, to clean up the mess. The best songs are those that haunt you, that play along to your thoughts and tempt you into moods.

I get home at 4am. I am exhausted. I brush my teeth, wash the make up off. Did this all really happen? As I go to bed everything feels the same, but I was in Munich three hours ago.

Here are some pics of the concert. Thanks to Nate and Lucka's camera. I wish you were there.