Amy MacBeath

So, Friday night at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange - Death Cab for Cutie from Washington with support from Scots band Frightened Rabbit.  At the risk of sounding like a wee indie/emo kid…(ah to hell with it!)…it was awesome!

Despite the fact I had to travel there alone and therefore was extremely sober compared to everyone who didn’t have the delights of a full Friday afternoon of uni holding them back, I managed to find everyone in time to get there for Frightened Rabbit which was pretty impressive as I rarely make it to a gig in time to see support in the same city as me.    Unfortunately they came on before I made it to the bar but I wasn’t missing them!

From memory, most of the tracks were off their latest album The Midnight Organ Fight with only one exception which I believe was from their previous 2007 offering Sings the Greys.  Scott Huchison’s vocals carried surprisingly well in the venue (I normally prefer Carling Academy for his style of vocals as they carry better) and I still managed to look a numpty singing along to ‘Old Old Fashioned’ by myself in a beer queue.  Ah well.  My only negative comment would be (and it’s not their fault) that the set was WAY too short…perhaps it just felt that way but I only remember about half a dozen songs and I know they weren’t the headliners but hey, I wanted to hear more.

Death Cab for me disappointed a little.  Considering when I got this ticket I didn’t know until shortly after that Frightened Rabbit were joining them, I was excited to see them I felt that they were running through the motions a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong I still think they were really good and if I was a huge fan of them then I am sure it would have loved it anyway, it’s just I was expecting a little more from them I guess and after enjoying their support so much it fell a little flat.  I don’t think their sound was as good either. 

Nevertheless enjoyed it a lot as I hadn’t heard a few of their songs in ages like ‘The New Year’ from Transatlanticism, the classic sing along Death Cab track ‘I will follow you into the dark’ and ‘I will possess your heart’ from this year’s album Narrow Stairs.  I also had the pleasure of being drunkenly serenaded.

Despite the fact that a treck to Edinburgh to see a gig is generally a bit of a hassle, although I can promise you the countless trecks from Inverness to see gigs make it seems nothing, the gig was worth it. 

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get a ticket to Frightened Rabbit’s sold out King Tut’s gig this month!

Going to see them on Friday!