Ben Gibbard at Cat's Cradle

I love The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie so when I heard the frontman for both of those bands was doing a solo tour and coming to The Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC, I snatched up a ticket quickly.

This is the third time I've seen Ben live (the other two being when he was on tour with Death Cab in 05-06). I walked in and found a spot on the floor. MUCH smaller venue than either of the other two and I'm pretty sure I got closer to the stage than I was at Disco Rodeo. A lot of excitment - and three hours of standing followed.

At times I was left to wonder if Cat's Cradle was actually up to code. If you've ever been there you know what I'm talking about. This is the first venue I've ever seen that is, literally, part of a strip mall. It's situated next to a video rental store at the very end. The big red tour bus took up 3/4 of the parking log. Ok, not really, but it looked very out of place.

The coolest thing about this concert was the interactivity between the artists and the audience. Both times that I saw Death Cab there was a large crowd and no one really said much. This time each artist talked and had little conversations with the audience. Had I said "I like your shirt Ben," he probably would have said "Why, thank you." I didn't speak up but Ben chatted with other audience members, told some funny stories about a guy who had stalked him since he arrived, and paused for a poleroid photo-op between songs. Each of the opening acts was up for about 30 minutes and Ben played for a little over an hour. Everyone was fun, energetic, and in a great mood. Well worth the $22.50 I paid to get in.

Below is a video of his opening song, a cover of some sort that he then used to transition into "Brand New Colony," a Postal Service piece. I love Death Cab but seeing Ben perform 3 Postal Service songs was the highlight for me since he so rarely gets the chance to perform them. I was a fan of Postal Service before I had ever listened to any of his other stuff. In addition to this video I took a short clip from his performance of "Carolina," a song from his solo ep which he said he had never played live before. Pretty obvious why he picked it. I missed this part, but right after the clip finishes he changed the last chorus to "North Carolina waits for me." Woot.

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I saw Ben Gibbard on his solo tour May 11th at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC. Finally, I got to hear some postal service songs! Forgive the HORRID sound quality.

Sorry for the crappy sound quality. It's a Kodak still camera.