On Thursday night (12/09) I went to the Deck the Hall Ball, a concert put on by the local radio station KNDD 107.7 – the end. All and all it was a good show. The evening started out with the British band Snow Patrol. I have to give them a review of incomplete. My brother Drew and I showed up about 6:20pm. for a show that started at 6pm so we only saw about two songs of theirs.
Next up was the British band Keane. These guys sounded great. Personally they are not the kind of music that I really listen to but they played a tight set. Actually I really do not think I had heard their music before. I think these guys would be the perfect band to play a wedding. 
Next up was the Shins. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I could not completely convince myself that they were just mixed incorrectly from the sound mixing board but they did not sound good at all. Even the song on the Garden State soundtrack did not sound that great. As their set progressed it did get a bit better but overall they left me disappointed. They had admitted that they had had a lot of down time but overall they just seemed a bit off. They did not add a lot of stage presence.
The next big band out of Las Vegas, the Killers took the stage next and they really rocked. They all came out dressed in red suit coats and ties and looked really sharp. I guess I had not seen any of their videos, I rarely seem to watch MTV anymore (although you have to watch M2 or VH1 to really see videos anymore) so I had not see what the Killers looked like. Their lead singer totally reminded me of a Vegas lounge singer and he has the kind of crooner style that many of them do but they were a very fun band to see live. Their first CD is great and I really look forward to see how their next record does.
The Scottish band Franz Ferdinand was up next. I saw these guys at the Endfest show only a few months ago and they seem a lot more polished now. They really were a fan favorite. They have great stage presence. Alex, the lead singer has a lot of move like a young Mick Jager. They guys looked like they were having a lot of fun. They even played a couple of unreleased songs.
Last up for the evening was Seattle’s own (well a suburb of Seattle) Modest Mouse. It had been a few years since I had seen them live. I was really disappointed in their performance on Saturday Night Live this year. I think they proved the rule that most bands sound awful when they are on that TV show. In the concert they sounded good and played a bunch of their older songs. It was fun to see the Seattle Sonics mascot, Squawtch out on stage playing percussion with the band. One of the disappointing things about Modest Mouse however was that they seem to take a long time between songs. It got to the point where it really slowed down the pace of the show.
Overall it was a fun night. The biggest disappointment was the Shins. It was a toss up between the Killers and Franz Ferdinand. Modest Mouse reminds my favorite band of the bunch however. It was kind of funny that up on stage they had a little TV that was playing just a picture of a fireplace with a roaring fire. Well half way through the Franz Ferdinand set it just switched to a JVC VCR logo. You then see someone rewinding the tape but finally they just turned it off.
A digital recording of my life 