I saw DCFC at Red Rocks last night. It was A M A Z I N G →[More:]

Ben Gibbard is one insanely talented individual. The show kicked all sorts of ass.

Also: Kids these days! There were a dozen or so kids (aged roughly 11-18) surrounding us in our row. I was a little dubious about that at first, which I grant was total projection based on how annoying my friends and I were as teenaged concertgoers.

I couldn't have been more wrong. They were really fun and enthusiastic and sweet, NOT shrieky or obnoxious, obviously big fans of the band, and their joy was infectious and completely added to the experience. The boys even asked us if we wanted to switch around spots so we could see better, since the mister and I are both petite, and the boys were tall enough to see over the heads of the people in front of us. One of the girls appeared to be blogging/txting/Twittering live updates on the setlist with her iPhone, which cracked me up, and they all held their cell phones up with the LCD screens lit when DCFC played Transatlanticism as the closing song, which also totally cracked me up (the more things change, eh?). Of course, when I was their age, and dinosaurs roamed the earth, and cell phones hadn't yet become portable we'd have all been smoking like chimneys and used our lighters, because back then nobody went anywhere without a pack of smokes and a Bic to flick. I think I saw less than a dozen lighters in the whole crowd last night - it was almost 100% LCDs.

I haven't been to a big arena concert since the late 80's, and Red Rocks was also special for that "wow I saw so many televised concerts done here when I was a kid" angle - which Ben G. totally riffed on at one point during the intro to "I'll Follow You Into the Dark".

The crowd was roughly an equal mix of tweens/teens/college kids, and older 30 and 40something indie rock fans, who mostly seemed to be there as fans like us, not because they had kids of their own to chaperone. The opening band was Rogue Wave, a California gig I've not heard of, but they were actually pretty darn good, which helped set the mood for the evening.

It was the coolest, most fun big venue crowd I've ever been in; which I guess makes sense. I can't imagine Death Cab fans being as rowdy drunk and hellacious as, say, a Revolting Cocks crowd.